


From Small Stones

by wistering



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Caretaking, Cassandra will not tolerate reckless behavior, Character Development, Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Insecurity, Minor Character Death, Teenage Inquisitor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-25 22:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3826924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wistering/pseuds/wistering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was never supposed to be him. Mahanon was the one who learned to lead the clan as the Keeper's First, the one people looked up to, the one they trusted. His brother was a rock, the cornerstone of the clan, Revel's safe place in a world that was falling apart.</p><p>But he's dead.</p><p>Revel looks at the waves of soldiers standing before him, their eyes pinning him to the ground with the weight of their hopes, their desperation. They need a leader. They need someone who can take responsibility for their army, someone who will fight for the good of the Inquisition. Cassandra offers him the sword and all Revel can think is, <i>I can't do this</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Just a) Boy

**Author's Note:**

> The dialogue sticks very close to canon in some parts, sorry. This is my first fic, hope you enjoy!

The Keeper finally gave her permission after three entire weeks. Not even the craftmaster, old and world-weary as he was, had lasted that long against him.

For three weeks Revel had badgered, bullied, pranked, and one time outright _begged_ the Keeper to let him go to the Conclave. On his _knees_. And every single time, she’d said no. ‘No, Revel, you’re too young’, she’d say. You’re too reckless. You will endanger my First. No, no, no; blah, blah, blah. But after one particularly nasty prank, she’d finally given in.

“Fine,” she had snapped, dumping furs full of toads onto his lap. Revel had scrambled to get his knives away from the squishy lumps before he accidentally sliced their guts open, and the Keeper continued, “You may accompany my First to the Conclave, if only because I know you will be insufferable otherwise. You _will_ behave yourself there. I do _not_ want to find that two of my clansmen are dead because of one boy’s foolish actions.”

“Yes!” he shouted in glee, pumping his fists and dropping the toads he’d been scooping up in his arms. “I mean yes, Keeper Istimaethoriel,” he corrected, seeing her grimace.

She sighed, sweeping a hand over her face. “I will inform your brother so he knows you are coming with him. Truly, I beg you to be careful, da’len. I do not wish to see either of you hurt.”

“I know, I know,” Revel said, gathering up his things. The toads hopped away lethargically, and he nudged some off his leather covers with his foot. “Templars, mages - and two Dalish in a pit of shems. A lot of bad can happen. Worst comes to worst, it won’t even be my fault. That’s why I have to go, Keeper.” He hitched his bag onto his shoulder and faced her. “Someone needs to take care of my brother and get him out when things go wrong. And who better than me, right?”

The Keeper gave him a flat look. “Da’len, it is your brother who gets _you_ out of trouble.”

“And that just means it’s time I repay the favor.”

Keeper Istimaethoriel sighed deeply, her tattoos sagging into her wrinkles. “Just go, Revel. Prepare for the long journey ahead.”

Grinning, he dashed back to the camp. “I already have!” he called out over his shoulder.

Just before he was out of distance, he heard the Keeper heave another pained sigh, and his grin had spread ever the wider.

 

 

He wakes up afraid.

He’s cold from sweat and the dank chill in the air. His heart thumps hard enough that he feels it battering against his chest and he gulps at the air, over and over, never getting enough in him.

He’s not all right.

It’s dark. Everything hurts. He tries to brush the hair from his face but he’s in chains. Oh Creators. Is he - there are people around him. Standing. Their outlines lit by sharp fire flickering from torches on the walls. Are they slavers?

He needs to find Mahanon.

Still breathing erratically, Revel darts his gaze around the room. It’s small. There aren’t any other elves here, just him and the shems. They’re in armor and have really big swords pointed at his face. Mythal protect him, they might just slice him up before he gets to grovel to his future master.

He tries to calm down, think rationally. Really. But it’s a little hard to be calm when he’s shackled to the floor and about to be sold like cattle to some magister in Tevinter. This is every Dalish elf’s childhood nightmare, and the only thing that can make him calm is seeing his brother. Mahanon always makes things right. But where is he?

Revel looks down and away from the swords in his face, wondering if he can get the lockpick out from his sleeve without being seen. But then something catches his eye. On his hand, there’s something. Different. It’s a mark? A slave brand. He feels sick to his stomach, and the feeling magnifies a thousand fold when the mark starts burning like acid and spitting green sparks. He shouts in pain, curling up.

Okay, maybe not a slave brand.

He eventually uncurls and sits up, staring at his hand with wide eyes. Whatever this is, it’s really bad. He takes a deep breath. He needs to find out what’s going on. Now that his sight is adjusting to the darkness he can see the glint of armor and metal in the firelight. These shems look like soldiers, not slavers. They’re not here to take him away, they’re here to keep him in. To kill him if things - whatever they are - go wrong.

He swallows, throat and mouth dry and tasting of ash.

He’s stuck there for what feels like hours, the mark sparking and burning every so often. It hurts so much. It feels like how Mahanon had described getting the vallaslin - _sharp pricks that spread beneath your skin, pinching and pulling, it builds inside you as a scream you can’t let out_ \- and Revel tries to keep it all in, but he can’t. He can’t help but yell in agony each time the mark sets itself on fire. At least he doesn’t cry.

The door bursts open. Revel flinches back. He sees two shem women walk in, and the soldiers relax, sliding their swords back into their sheaths.

The women are quite beautiful, but they also look like they can kill him with a well-placed kick. The one in the armor circles him like a wolf, while the other approaches him from the front. He keeps his gaze to the ground, trying not to provoke them, but his good behavior is for naught. The woman behind him leans forward and demands, “Tell my why we shouldn’t kill you now.”

Revel jerks forward to get away from her, but the woman walks around, continuing, “The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for _you_.”

He stops breathing.

She has to be lying.

At his silence, the woman grabs his left arm and yanks it up. “Explain this.” With perfect timing the mark spits out green. Revel cringes, pain lancing through him, but he successfully swallows his groan. The woman tosses his arm down and keeps circling, dangerous.

“I-I can’t,” he says.

“What do you mean, you _can’t_?” she snaps.

“I don’t know what this is! I don’t even know how it got there!” Which is the truth, but the woman rushes at him and lifts him by his coat.

“You’re lying!”

Revel whimpers and snaps his eyes shut. But instead of receiving a blow or the bite of steel, the other shem woman intervenes. She pushes the soldier woman back, saying, “We need him, Cassandra.” And she turns back to look at him.

He has no idea what’s happening, and he has so many questions. They can’t possibly be telling the truth about the Conclave, right? But what would they gain from lying? And what is this mark? What was he running from? There are too many things uncertain. He means to ask a question, any question, but instead what tumbles out of his damned mouth is, “If you were trying to scare me, you’re completely succeeding.”

Cassandra makes an irritated noise, and is silenced by the hooded woman in front of him.

She takes on an unassuming stance - a small part of him, the one that can still think, is amused at how these two women are working the bad-guard good-guard routine - and asks, “Do you remember what happened? How this began?”

“Not - not really?” he admits, but at seeing the dip in Cassandra’s eyebrows he hastily adds, “I remember running. _Things_ were chasing me, and then… a woman?” He remembers someone beckoning him, a small and thin figure, too short to be his brother. Who was that?

“A woman?” the hooded lady prompts.

“She…” He closes his eyes, trying to remember. Everything after arriving at the Conclave is a haze, a deep mist over the surface of the lake. But after that, what he remembers is like a nightmare: vague and unreal, laced with terror. The scary _things_ had been chasing him, and he climbed up what felt like a tall mountain, and at the top was the woman. The _things_ had almost gotten him, when… “She reached out to me, but then…” he trails off, unsure what happened after.

Cassandra herds the hooded woman away with an order to go to the ‘forward camp, Leliana’. Then she says, “I will take him to the Rift.”

He’d much prefer that Leliana take him, but he values his tongue and life and so says nothing.

Leliana goes, and Cassandra undoes the chains binding him to the floor, though she leaves the rope tied around his wrists. “You’re - you’re not serious about the Conclave, are you?” he asks, because it can’t be true. It has to be - he doesn’t know, it has to be a ruse to get him to spill… something.

“What do you mean.” Cassandra says it flatly, without inflection.

He swallows, throat dry, tight with a building sense of dread. “You said everyone is dead.” His voice breaks at the last word.

She looks up with an inscrutable expression. After a pause, she says, “It will be easier if I show you.”

The daylight blinds him when he steps outside. He blinks up at the sky, wondering if all the dark made his eyes go bad. But no. His eyes are fine, and there really is a giant glowing green hole in the sky.

“What is that,” he blurts, and then he’s hit with a burst of pain.

Cassandra calls it the Breach. It was caused by an explosion at the Conclave. Apparently it’s connected to the thing on his hand, as demonstrated by the fact that when the hole grows it makes Revel fall to his knees in agony. Not only does it spit out demons, it also ‘may grow until it swallows the world’. Which is great. Just what he wanted.

Cassandra kneels down in front of where he’s curled up. “Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads… and it is killing you. It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”

“What,” he hisses, clutching at his sparking hand, “what do you mean, the key? The key to what?”

“Closing the Breach. Whether that’s possible is something we will discover shortly. It is our only chance, however. And yours.”

He chuckles into his knees. “The fate of the world, on my shoulders? This feels more and more like it isn’t real.”

“It is real. The Breach as well as the threat it possesses. Will you help us or not?” she demands, voice rising.

Revel looks up at her. There’s desperation at the corners of her eyes. She still considers him a threat, another unknown in a wildly unbelievable scenario. There are only so many ways to deal with threats, and the best option for him is to become an ally. Otherwise, she’ll kill him. His stomach roils at the thought of dying here without his brother. So he looks at her, sucks in a deep breath, and says, “I understand.”

“Then...?”

“I’ll do what I can. Whatever it takes."

When the pain is over, Cassandra hoists him by the scruff of his collar and drags him through the camp. The soldiers stare at him, their eyes harsh under their helmets, and the villagers glare. Some of them hurl out insults, others look for answers. He hears more than a few ‘knife-ear’ remarks.

These people hate him. There had to be a reason. A big reason. Like the explosion at the Conclave. The more he sees, the more he hears, the more it all feels wrong.

Cassandra explains as they walk. “They have decided your guilt. They need it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between mages and templars. She brought their leaders together. Now, they are dead.”

“All of them, dead?”

“Everyone but you.”

He stops walking. Or at least, he tries to, but Cassandra drags him forcefully. She shoots him a look, and he keeps moving his feet.

It’s not true. Revel survived. Not _everyone_ died. Maybe just the shems. If Revel survived, so did Mahanon. Speaking of, Rev hopes that his big brother’s okay out in the wild. It’s awfully cold here with all the snow, and the last time Mahanon tried to light a fire he singed his own eyebrows. And what if he isn’t eating well? His brother can’t even hunt nugs without feeling guilty.

Cassandra keeps prattling on about Justinia and the Breach. When they pass one of the gates, she says he’ll at least be getting a trial before cutting the ropes on his wrists.

“Come. It is not far.”

“Where are you taking me?” he asks, because he’d rather not stay in the dark about everything.

“Your mark must be tested on something smaller than the Breach.”

Great.

 

 

They start moving along the roads. It’s unnerving, to say the least, seeing that giant hole in the sky right before his very eyes. Every now and then it spits out green fireballs, and at one point it looks - and feels - as if part of the world itself is being torn open. Revel falls over, nails sinking into the flesh of his left hand as he cries out in pain.

Cassandra hoists him up. “The pulses are coming faster now. The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons we face.”

Revel grimaces, flexing his hand. This is so unreal. “How did I even survive whatever happened to cause that?” he asks more to himself than anything, gazing up at the Breach.

“They said you… stepped out of a rift. Then fell unconscious,” Cassandra answers. “They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was.”

At that, he feels a swooping sensation. “So it’s possible there were survivors with me in wherever that rift was,” he mutters, a small smile stretching on his face.

“Did you say something?” Cassandra asks, turning around.

Revel drops the smile, his face as solemn and serious as it could ever be. “No, nothing.”

“Hmm.” She turns back and jogs past a gate, onto a stone bridge.

And then it explodes.

They both tumble down, rocks and dust flying about with them. He lands roughly on his hands and knees, a frozen river underneath him. He hears a shrieking noise and looks up. A green fireball bursts from the Breach and lands right there in front of him.

“Fenedhis,” he curses, scrambling back. In front of him, Cassandra rises to her feet just as the fireball’s flames shoot up. A demon appears inside and it stretches, languidly, threateningly.

“Stay behind me!” Cassandra orders. She dashes off to fight the demon, Revel’s very own dashing hero. He nods. Yeah, he’s going to leave the fighting to the terrifying woman with the sword and shield.

Or so he’d hoped.

Green lights pool up near his feet. “Cassandra!” he cries out, shuffling backwards. Another demon is crawling its way up, and by Andruil’s soggy tits Cassandra is much too far away to kill it.

Revel looks around desperately for something to fight with - at this point he will literally fight with the first weapon he sees. Or so he would like to say, but admittedly the first thing he sees is a staff, which, no. Then he sees a giant broadsword which would crush him flat if he tried to pick it up. After that he spies the clutter of knives hanging around the rubble of the bridge, which, yes!

He rushes to pick up all of the daggers just as the demon finally surfaces.

It looks hideous. Like a human was mangled by a bear, left to rot, then patched up with cloth and leather and goopy bits. Revel grimaces. This is going to be an awful fight. He rolls to its side, and as it turns he ducks under its arms to ram the knives into its stomach. The demon shrieks and claws at him, but he dodges, trying to keep at the demon’s back while slicing when he can.

His body is still stiff and sore from kneeling on a hard stone floor for who knows how long, but with enough running around and backstabbing he manages to kill the thing dead while suffering only a few minor cuts, gaping wounds, and scrapes. Wheezing, he stretches his lips in a thin smile and yells, “It’s over!” He can’t believe he actually fought and won against a demon. Mahanon will be so proud.

Cassandra apparently doesn’t agree. She rounds on him.

“Drop your weapon! Now,” she commands, hoisting her sword.

He drops the daggers immediately, and they clatter to the ground. “Okay,” he agrees belatedly, not betraying the fact that he has three more knives tucked into his clothes.

Cassandra regards him with mild surprise, gaze flickering to the daggers at his feet. Then she sighs. “No, keep them. I cannot protect you, and I cannot expect you to be defenseless.” She sheathes her sword. Revel blinks and hesitantly picks up the daggers, watching her carefully just in case she changes her mind and feels like stabbing something again. But she just turns and takes a few steps, sighing again. “I should remember that you agreed to come willingly.”

Yeah, that would be nice.

When he catches up behind her, she hands him some flasks. “Take these potions. Maker knows what we will face,” she says, brows furrowed down in worry.

“Oh,” he says. “Thanks.” He stares down at the flasks.

How long has it been since he last needed a potion? Whenever he got hurt, Mahanon would always be there to heal him up with magic, smiling that tired but always gentle smile of his. But now Mahanon’s not here - he’s - he’s -

He’s just off in the wilderness, holed up in a cave somewhere, roasting elfroot, probably. Maybe he’s in the tunnel. Revel downs one of the potions and tucks the rest into his coat. “All right, let’s go.”

They make their way through the path, fighting more demons along the way. The demons keep falling from the Breach endlessly, and it feels like it’s getting worse. As they run up a set of stairs carved into rock, Cassandra calls out, “We’re getting close to the rift. You can hear the fighting.”

“Who’s fighting?” Revel shouts.

“You’ll see soon. We must help them.”

He’s winded when he finally reaches the top. To the right he sees a flaming broken bridge, maybe the one they had been crossing before. And up ahead he sees people and demons, fighting, and a floating green mess of crystal, moving and pulsing with the mark on his hand. Is that the rift?

Cassandra rushes forward into the fray. Revel follows, not quite as flashy. He takes on one of the demons attacking the elf (a mage? But not Dalish), ramming his knives deep into its back. The two of them make quick work of it, Revel dragging the demon’s attention away from the mage and giving him enough time to cast his spells. Cassandra dukes it out with the other demon, and off to the side there’s a dwarf with a giant crossbow. The dwarf puts a bolt through the demon’s head just as Cassandra chops it in half, and Revel backs up just in time to not get fried by the mage’s lightning.

The demons dead, Revel rears back as the green crystal explodes into a glowing mass of light, almost like some sort of rip in reality. The mage elf grabs his arm. “Quickly, before more come through!” He thrusts Revel’s hand at the light; a searing pain runs through him as a beam erupts from his palm, connecting to the tear. The light swirls and contracts, then explodes again. Gone.

Revel stumbles back, eyes wide and pinned on the mage. What in the world was that? “What did you do?” he asks, gripping his hand.

Calmly, the mage waves him off. “I did nothing. The credit is yours.”

“You mean this thing on my hand?” He raises it, showing the bright green mark. The mage nods.

“Whatever magic opened the Breach also placed that mark upon your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake - and it seems I was correct.” He seems pleased with himself.

“Meaning it could also close the Breach itself,” Cassandra adds, sauntering closer.

“Possibly.” Addressing Revel, the mage clasps his hands and says, “It seems you hold the key to our salvation.”

A voice drawls out from behind, “Good to know. And here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.” It’s the dwarf. He’s adjusting his gloves, and then he looks up, all charm. He walks forward to join the cozy little circle they’ve made, standing in the center of a small ruin.

“This is a terrible premise,” Revel blurts, backing up. “You’re seriously depending on me to save the world? Then what, saving empresses, slaying dragons?” He smiles to cover up the rising panic. What in the name of the Creators has he gotten himself into now?

The dwarf chuckles. “Well, I’ve got to admit, it’s not the kind of story I’d write.” With a charming grin he introduces himself. “Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.” At the last phrase his gaze cuts to Cassandra, whose lip curls.

By Mythal’s shining ass, it’s Varric Tethras. Revel panics even further. _I have to make a good impression_ is the first thing he thinks, and he throws caution to the wind. “Great,” Revel exclaims, falsely chipper. “I’m Revel of Clan Lavellan, Rev for short. Do me a favor. When the bards come, tell them the tale of the dashing shemlen knight who _didn’t_ piss his pants when demons literally fell from the _sky_. Makes for a much better story than the Dalish brothers who -” He stops.

He sees Cassandra blink and uncross her arms, catching on to the information he’d just let slip. He swallows, quickly continues his conversation with Varric. “By the way, that’s a nice crossbow you’ve got there,” he says, gesturing at the contraption strapped to the dwarf’s back.

Varric grins, a gleam in his eye as he plays along. “Ah, isn’t she? Bianca and I have been through a lot together.” He turns his head to lovingly gaze at his crossbow. Which, okay. Revel has seen worse from Hunter Farrell and her longbow.

“So she’s Bianca, huh? That’s a good name,” Revel says, injecting some admiration in his voice.

“That’s right. And she’ll be great company in the valley.”

“Absolutely not,” Cassandra interjects, striding closer. “Your help is appreciated, Varric, but -”

Varric interrupts. “Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker?” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You need me.” He tilts his head, a smirk catching the corner of his lip as he winks. Cassandra makes a disgusted noise and stomps off. Well, looks like Varric wins this round.

The mage elf approaches, smiling faintly. “My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I am pleased to see you still live.”

“He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept,’” Varric explains.

Oh. The strange elf might not be so bad, then, though there’s still something unnerving about him. It’s obvious from his way of speaking that he’s a bookish type; he probably kept Revel alive to study his hand like he would a rune carved on a wall. “ _Are you Dalish?_ ” he asks in Elven. “ _You do not carry yourself as a flat-ear, but you have no vallaslin, either_.”

“ _No, I am not Dalish, though I know of your people’s ways_ ,” the man replies enigmatically. The faint smile on his face has dimmed, and Revel gets the feeling that he shouldn’t press the matter, so he backpedals.

“You have my thanks for keeping me alive.” Revel nods in respect.

The man tilts his head. “Thank me if we manage to close the Breach without killing you in the process.” Well, that’s heartening. Solas turns to address Cassandra, who’d walked off to stare into some firey rubble. “Cassandra, you should know: the magic involved here is unlike any I have seen. Your prisoner is no mage. Indeed, I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power.”

“Understood,” Cassandra says, weary. “We must get to the forward camp quickly.” And she walks off, Solas following closely.

Varric walks around from behind. “Well… Bianca’s excited!” he says in the tone of _at least there’s that_.

“That makes one of us,” Revel mutters, jogging forward to catch up.

 

 

They walk down more stairs, walk through more snow, walk across more frozen rivers, and then fight some demons. It’s all a very grand, very lovely affair. Frozen toes, bleeding wounds, a lovely view of an apocalyptic sky and an unshakable sense of impending doom: what more could you want?

He’s shivering, bones chattering with cold as Cassandra pulls him from a snow bank. One of the demons had knocked him to the side, and while he’s now freezing, at least he can’t feel the pain in his extremities. “Fenedhis. How are your feet still attached to your body?” he gasps at Solas as Cassandra knocks off the snow gathered on his coat. The other elf doesn’t wear shoes, and neither does Revel, but it’s an elvhen custom that he sorely regrets now that his toes are turning blue.

Varric manages to find him some boots (which he’s pretty sure came off a corpse, but beggars can’t be choosers) and hands them over while asking, “So. Are you innocent?”

Revel slips them on. He hates the weight of shoes binding his feet, but it’s better than getting frostbite. “I don’t remember what happened,” he tells Varric, who laughs.

“That’ll get you every time,” the dwarf says wryly. “Should’ve spun a story.”

Cassandra frowns. “That’s what _you_ would have done.”

“It’s more believable! And less prone to premature execution.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Revel says, standing.

They set off again, climbing up more blighted stairs as they scale the mountainside. They smash through some more demons along the way. Cassandra pulls her sword out of a Shade, grimacing when she sees the strange flesh clinging to the steel. “I hope Leliana made it through all this.”

Varric slides Bianca away onto his back. “She’s resourceful, Seeker.”

“We will see for ourselves once we reach the forward camp. We’re almost there,” Solas says.

They follow the path up the snow. He thinks he can see the top of a gate up the steps, but when they climb the stairs he sees the green crystal floating ahead.

Cassandra draws her sword. “Another rift!”

“Wonderful,” Revel mutters, dodging to the side as the tear spits out shades and wraiths.

After they clear out the demons, Revel holds out his hand. The light shoots out from his palm and closes the rift, much to the amazement of the soldiers behind the barricades. Cassandra orders the soldiers to open the gate, and she marches through onto another stone walkway. Revel jogs to catch up and follow closely behind. Hopefully this one doesn’t explode, too.

There are a couple more soldiers at arms behind the gate. Revel inches away, walking square behind Cassandra as she leads them further on the bridge. Up ahead he sees Leliana. She’s arguing with some dowdy old man in white and red robes and a black hat - someone from the Chantry, one of those leaders of the shemlen religion.

When they approach, the old man raises himself from where he was leaning on a table. “Ah, here they come.” Though he’d been expecting them, he does not look pleased. Leliana rolls her eyes as she steps forward to meet them.

“You made it,” she says, relieved. “Chancellor Roderick, this is -”

“I know who he is,” the old man sneers. Prick. He turns to Cassandra. “As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution.”

His heart stops, the word ‘execution’ echoing in his head, and he shoots a panicked glance at Cassandra. Instead of wrangling him and slapping chains on his wrists like he’d expect, she just throws her hands out like _can you believe this guy_? She repeats, “’ _Order me_?’” with a sneer matching the Chancellor’s. She steps forward, body tight with danger. “You are a glorified clerk. A bureaucrat!”

Revel can’t even imagine why he ever disliked Cassandra.

“And you are a thug, but a thug who supposedly serves the Chantry!” The Chancellor shakes his head in distaste.

Leliana, also fed up with this, corrects him. “We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor, as you well know.”

“Justinia is dead!” the man cries out, holding up his hands. Revel is unimpressed as the man continues his tirade, trying to establish himself at the top of the chain of command. He glances back, just to see how Varric and Solas are reacting. They look equally disinterested.

Revel shuffles backwards to stand beside them as Cassandra, Leliana, and the Chancellor continue to argue. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be caught up in _that_ ,” Varric remarks.

Revel blows out a breath. “Lucky for you then. You get to just watch.”

With an utterly unruffled expression on his face, Solas tells him, “Cassandra knows you are vital to closing the Breach. You are safe with us, for however long it takes to accomplish this task.”

He smiles tiredly. “So I’ll either die trying, or die after trying.”

“Hey, you never know how the story ends until it’s done,” Varric says. Revel can’t tell if he meant to be comforting or not.

The mark on his hand sparks. Revel grits his teeth, his knees giving out, but Solas takes him by the shoulders so that he doesn’t fall. He gasps, and when he can speak he chokes out a grateful “ _Ma serannas_ , Solas.”

To Cassandra, Leliana, and the Chancellor, who’ve stopped bickering to stare at him in bewilderment, he says through his teeth, “The Breach is the more pressing issue here, I’m pretty sure.”

“You brought this on us in the first place!” the Chancellor yells, face red with fury. Ugh.

The man is ready to give up on this place. Revel is sure that all the Chancellor wants is to be back in some fancy Chantry building and sitting on a cushy chair, ordering people to go execute this and serve that. He tells Cassandra to call for a retreat, to pull back from this demon-infested mountain. It’s not such a bad idea, really, if it weren’t for the fact that the entire world might be destroyed because of the hole in the sky.

Cassandra insists that they get up the temple in order to reach the Conclave, though Leliana apparently thinks going through the mountain is faster. The ever-so-helpful Chancellor calls for them to abandon all hope before more lives are lost, as if all lives won’t be lost if they don’t do anything. As if agreeing with Revel’s inner thoughts, the mark bursts again as the Breach stretches and belches green lightning. He clutches his hand. By the Dread Wolf, he hates this thing.

“How do you think we should proceed?” Cassandra asks. Revel looks up, stunned to see that she’s actually addressing him.

“Now you want _my_ opinion?” he asks, incredulous. Cassandra shrugs.

“You have the mark,” Solas quips, as if that explains everything.

“And you are the one we must keep alive,” Cassandra elaborates. “Since we cannot agree on our own…”

That’s the understatement of the age. Biting his lip, he casts his eyes around the forward camp. Their options are to charge with the soldiers or to go through the mountain path. It’ll take more time to go with the soldiers, but the mountain path is riskier.

He shakes his head. They’ve wasted enough time. _The risk is worth the reward_ , Revel always said; closing the Breach and potentially saving the world is a bit more serious than hiding snake skin under the Keeper’s furs, but he’ll stick with it to the end.

More importantly, he might find his brother along the mountains. That’s where Revel had told him to go, _just in case things go wrong_ , he’d said. His hands grip into fists.

“We’re taking the mountain path,” he decides, meeting Cassandra’s eyes. She looks grim, but doesn’t fight him. “The sooner we can get this done, the better.”

 

 

The mountain path is an old mine, or so Cassandra says. They have to climb up sets of ladders to reach a tunnel into the mountain, and Solas reminds them that whatever detained the soldiers along this path will be there. Revel jumps up to the top platform and sneaks ahead while the others climb up the ladders. There’s a large, ornate entrance just ahead. He peeks inside and sees movement in the shadows, as well as a faint green glow from wraiths.

He sidles back to the landing and hisses, “Demons.”

“Of course.” Varric sighs.

“Let us prepare to fight,” Cassandra orders, drawing her weapon.

They proceed through the tunnel. It’s much fancier than a mining shaft should be, with all the archways and railings and balconies overlooking the the vast holes down to nothingness and whatnot, but then again he doesn’t know much about shem culture. Maybe they venerate mines, make them look all pretty. Who’s he to judge?

He’d told Mahanon this when he’d first scouted out the place. There were a lot of nice spots to hide, and it was a quick getaway from the Conclave that the templars couldn’t follow to, what with all of their heavy armor. But Mahanon had just laughed, patted him on the head. “ _I’m sure we’ll be fine, but thanks for looking out for me_ ,” he’d said.

“ _Obviously,_ ” Revel had replied, knocking his shoulder against his brother’s.

He’s going to be so pissed if Mahanon didn’t take the mountain path, even though Revel had told him to. What if he went off on his own and gets lost in the snow? What if he freezes to death or starves? What if - what if he’s right there in front of Revel right now.

There are corpses littering the steps when they get out of the tunnel. Varric sighs and murmurs, “Guess we found the soldiers.”

“Yeah,” Revel says, staring at them. None of them are familiar. None of them are his brother. He should be relieved - that means his brother must still be alive, not dead, not yet, right? - but instead what he feels is dread pooling in his stomach.

They find the rest of the soldiers fighting at a rift. It’s actually pretty impressive how long they’ve lasted. The rift spits out more demons as he approaches. He seals it as soon as they’re cleared off, and Solas mentions that he’s becoming proficient at doing that.

“Let’s hope it works on the big one,” Varric says.

Cassandra helps up the other soldiers on the pass. The lieutenant thanks her for coming, but Cassandra has to make it awkward by telling her to thank him for deciding to come this way.

“The prisoner?” The lieutenant is obviously surprised. She looks him up and down. “Then you…?”

“Yeah,” he says, glaring at Cassandra and hoping his eyes properly convey his feelings of please stop putting things on me now. She ignores him and orders the soldiers to head back to the valley now that the way is clear. Revel goes back to looking around the mountain pass, spying into the treeline and gazing into the soldiers’ faces. Before they go, he asks them, “Did you… happen to see anyone else out here?”

“Not a soul,” the lieutenant replies. Revel swallows and nods, looking down.

No sign of Mahanon. Not anywhere. Where is he?

Solas walks up beside him. “The path ahead appears to be clear of demons as well.”

Cassandra nods. “Let’s hurry before that changes.”

They make their way down. Revel sees in the distance a bunch of huge black spikes erupting from the ground. Even a fair distance away from the temple, they tower over their surroundings. It’s… insane.

He stops moving.

“Is that where we’re going?” He’s quiet. He’s afraid, terribly afraid all of a sudden, so much so that he almost cannot speak. But they hear him nonetheless. “That’s where the Conclave was?” Where Mahanon had been.

“Yes.” Cassandra looks at him with that inscrutable expression again.

He doesn’t know what to say. He just has an intense, suffocating feeling that he shouldn’t get any closer. He walks anyway.

 

 

 

He smells it, first. It’s smoke, acrid, burning in his nose and his throat. And it’s pork. Roast pork, cooked flesh. People burned alive. He doesn’t need to see it to believe it’s real anymore.

But he does see it. Sees the charred ground, the twisted corpses. Sees the burning bodies of humans and qunari and dwarves and -

And elf.

 

 

 

He laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs, and eventually, he doesn’t know when, the laughs start to sound like sobs.

 

 

 

He’s walking through the ruin and into the Conclave. There are people there. There is a rift there. There is the Breach above them. He’s not all right, but he has a duty. The Breach, he has to close it.

Leliana arrives with soldiers. They set up around the temple.

Cassandra grabs him by the shoulder and shakes. He looks up, not realizing how unfocused his gaze was until it sharpened on her face. She looks worried. Tired. Maybe afraid. Or maybe that’s just him. “This is your chance to end this,” she says. “Are you ready?”

He looks up at the Breach. Looks down at the green crystal rift in the center of the temple. “Yeah,” he says.

Solas says that this rift was the first, and closing it might close the Breach. Revel nods absently. They need to find a way down, so they walk.

When he gets closer to the rift, he starts hearing voices. A man muttering about a sacrifice. A woman - Divine Justinia, apparently - screaming for someone to help her. He vaults down to stand in front of the rift, and then he hears himself asking “What’s going on here?”

But he hadn’t spoken.

“That was your voice,” Cassandra says, surprised. “Most Holy called out to you. But…”

“It wasn’t me,” he says, more out of reflex than anything. But then the rift sparks, and he sees a vision. A dark spectre entrapping the Divine; she called out for help, and there he is. Revel. The Divine told him to run and get help, and the spectre ordered someone to ‘slay the elf’.

Revel doesn’t remember this at all. He gets the feeling it was real, though.

Cassandra rushes up to him, asks him questions he can’t answer, so he doesn’t bother. Solas has plenty to say, though.

They need to open the rift, slay the demons, and close it properly. It sounds easy enough until a Pride demon pops out of the Fade. Mahanon said that Pride was the most powerful of them all. It’s probably true. He can’t really tell. The fight passes as if in a blur, and when it’s done and over he just raises his hand, feels the rift close, and falls to black.


	2. Herald of Andraste

The note by the table says he’s been unconscious for days. He pockets everything that looks useful. There’s a din of murmurs outside, and when he opens the door he sees a crowd of people gathered in front of the house.

At first he thinks, _they’re going to kill me_ , and he closes the door.

The mob doesn’t break down the walls, so after a while he hesitantly steps outside. He can’t hide in here forever, much as he’d like to; Cassandra is waiting for him in the Chantry. He won’t tempt fate further by pissing her off.

It’s unsettling, to say the least. All of those eyes - villagers and soldiers, all of them watching, whispering. The soldiers stand with their fists held over their hearts. It almost looks like respect.

_That’s him_ , someone hisses. He thinks they’re calling him Harold.

It’s very impressive how Cassandra made sure he couldn’t escape by making the walls out of people. He tells her as much when he meets her in the Chantry, after the heavy doors close and shield him from those many eyes.

“I did not make them,” she says, bemused.

“Sure.” He begins walking towards the raised voices at the end of the hall, but Cassandra stops him with a hand on his arm.

“Wait. I needed to ask. Before, at the Conclave…” 

“I told you I don’t remember anything,” he says stiffly, shoulders tensed.

“No, after. When we got there, you…” she trails off, brows furrowed.

“Lost it?” he provides, a thin layer of bitterness seeping into his voice.

Cassandra shifts in discomfort. “To put it plainly, yes. You knew that person, the one you knelt in front of as you laughed, then cried. Was he… your brother?”

He crosses his arms. “I wondered when you were going to ask. It’s your job to ask all these questions I don’t want to answer, isn’t it?”

“Varric would have you think so. I suppose it is not too far from the truth.” She sighs and looks at him, weariness in her eyes. “You do not have to answer. I only wished to convey my condolences. I had been unaware that you, too, had lost someone at the Conclave. I was perhaps too quick to blame you for what happened, and for that, I apologize.”

Revel shrugs, not looking at her. “You did what you had to do.”

“Did I?” Her voice is surprisingly cold, but it returns to normal as she continues, “Enough. I shall not drag this out any further.”

They enter a room at the end of the hall. Leliana and Chancellor Roderick stand there in chilly silence, though as soon as the man sees Revel he bursts out, “Chain him! I want him prepared for travel to the capital immediately for trial.”

Cassandra holds up a hand. “Disregard that, and leave us.”

The guards salute and take their leave. Revel watches them go until the door behind him closes with a thud.

“You walk a dangerous line, Seeker,” Roderick says, a taunting lilt in his voice.

“The Breach is stable, but it is still a _threat_. I will _not_ ignore it,” Cassandra states, moving in to stand before the Chancellor.

They glare at each other. Revel walks out from behind Cassandra. It’s time he speaks up for himself, regardless of how great a shield the Seeker is. It’s sickening how this man continues to treat him like a rampant criminal, and he’s not going to just lie down and take it. “I did everything I could to seal that Breach. I don’t know why it’s not gone, but I nearly _died_ just stabilizing it.”

“Yet you live!” the Chancellor sneers. “A convenient result, insofar as you’re concerned.”

Revel slaps his hand onto the table. “Yes,” he snarls back. “ _Convenient_ to have survived as the last of my entire family! My brother, my _brother_ was in that Conclave, and you think that I-” A sob erupts from him. He tries to fight it, face pinched. “I-”

“I will not be swayed by manipulation-”

“Have a care, Chancellor,” Cassandra growls. Revel feels her hand at the small of his back, and she guides him to sit at a chair. “Take your time,” she murmurs, and turning back to the Chancellor she says, “The Breach is not the only threat we face.”

Leliana joins in. “Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave. Someone Most Holy did not expect.” She shares a glance with Cassandra. “Perhaps they died with the others -” And now she turns her gaze to the Chancellor. “- or have allies who yet live.”

“ _I_ am a suspect?” the Chancellor cries out in disbelief.

“You and many others,” Leliana says, tone clipped.

The Chancellor steps forward, his nose wrinkling in anger. “But _not_ the prisoner.” Revel glares at the man from where he sits, still hiccuping and wiping at his damned bleary eyes. He only just contains himself from making an impolite gesture.

“I heard the voices in the temple. The Divine called to him for help,” Cassandra says.

The man turns to her instead and crosses his arms. “So his survival, that _thing_ on his hand - all a coincidence?” he asks, the last word dripping with contempt.

“Providence.” With more confidence than should be warranted for such an unbelievable claim Cassandra says, “The Maker sent him to us in our darkest hour.” Revel jerks his head to stare at her in disbelief. The Chancellor does much the same.

Then they all turn to him. He sniffles and clears his throat.

“Blessed be the Maker,” he says, maintaining eye contact with the Chancellor, who wrinkles his nose.

Cassandra nods. “We lost everything… then, out of nowhere, you came,” Cassandra says, earnest emotion bleeding in her voice.

She walks off to pick up a heavy book as Leliana comments, “The Breach remains, and your mark is still our only hope of closing it.”

The Chancellor does not agree. “This is _not_ for you to decide.”

Cassandra slams the book on the table and points at it. “You know what this is, Chancellor. A writ from the Divine, granting us the authority to act.” Leliana looks smug as Cassandra states in an authoritative tone, “As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn.”

Then Cassandra advances on the Chancellor, jabbing her finger at him. “We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order. With or _without_ your approval.” The man just glances from side to side, disbelieving, but his face skews into an outraged expression as he walks off without a word.

Cassandra droops, running her hand over the back of her head. Leliana walks over to the book and explains to Revel, “This is the Divine’s directive: rebuild the Inquisition of old. Find those who will stand against the chaos.” She sighs. “We aren’t ready. We have no leader, no numbers, and now no Chantry support.” Her voice rises in irritation at the end.

“But we have no choice,” Cassandra says, resigned. She turns to face Revel. “We must act now, with you at our side.”

She must see something in his face, for she grimaces. “I know you must wish to return home to your clan, but…”

“The Breach,” he says. “The rifts. I know.” He wipes at his eyes one last time, then stands and takes a few steps forward so he is beside Leliana. He stares down at his hands.

He couldn’t go back now. Not like this. He’d just be bringing back danger to his clan. And besides, staying, helping… it’s what Mahanon would have wanted. What he would’ve done, if he were the one standing here instead of Revel.

So he says, “I did say I’d do whatever I can.”

“Then you’ll help us fix this before it’s too late.” Cassandra nods and extends a hand. Revel glances down at it in surprise, and clasps it. They shake, and Cassandra smiles.

 

 

 

The next few days are busy for the Inquisition. They’re sending out messages, nailing up signs declaring the Inquisition’s protection. Revel’s not involved with any of that, of course. Cassandra tells him that he’s free to do as he pleases, so long as he doesn’t get in trouble.

Being told to not get in trouble would’ve sparked something in him, before.

The soldiers have recovered the remains from the Temple of Sacred Ashes, so Revel takes his brother’s body and buries it. It’s not the right season - there’s too much snow for anything to take root - but he spreads elfroot seeds over his brother’s grave anyway. “ _So that your body may continue to heal the world_ ,” he murmurs. He sweeps a hand over the dirt, covering the seeds as he whispers, “ _Emma ir abelas. Ar mala in revasan_.”

He hugs his knees to his chest, and stares at the grave, and at the small gravestone he had carved. He closes his eyes.

“May you have a safe journey, brother.”

When he gets too cold to keep sitting out in the snow, he trudges back to Haven in his new boots. The Inquisition people had forced him to take new clothes. They’d confiscated his old ones after he’d ditched these _shem_ clothes too many times, and now he’s left with no choice.

A messenger greets him as he reaches the main gate and tells him to be ready at the Chantry. They’re unfurling the Inquisition flag today, and they need to present a united front even though the only people who’d see it are the villagers in this isolated mountain town. Maybe it’s for the soldiers’ morale. _They need some hope_ , Leliana had said.

Regardless, he changes into some fancy armor that’d been left for him in the house and makes his way to the Chantry. He sees Leliana standing behind two other shems, one a man with a big furry mass on his shoulders and the other a woman shining in gold. He resolves to stop complaining as much; at least they didn’t make him wear something like _that_. He nods at Leliana and stands, ready, at the front.

It’s unnerving to be stared at; he can feel the eyes roving over him, dissecting him. But he stands tall with his head high. Mahanon wouldn’t be cowed by this. Mahanon was always ready to take on everything the world had to throw, and he did it with a smile. Revel tries to raise the corners of his lips into a charming grin, but he thinks it comes off as more of a wry scowl, so he stops.

After some torturous moments where he desperately fights to not fidget, he finally sees Cassandra approach from the distance. She strides to the Chantry, hand on the sword at her hip. She climbs the stairs, and Revel hears the flap of the flag. Then Cassandra turns to face forward, and looks decisively at the Breach. Revel stares at it, too, for solidarity. The soldiers in front of them look on in awe.

When the little ceremony is finally over, the new humans and Leliana head back into the Chantry. Cassandra beckons him, so he joins her in standing at the entrance.

“Was everything all right?” she asks. He thinks he’s getting used to her accent; he can tell she’s concerned and not angry, like she kind of always sounds.

He nods. “Thanks. For the help.”

“No thanks are necessary.” She turns towards the inside of the Chantry. “Come. We must discuss.”

Walking down the hall, Revel picks the mark. Cassandra glances over. “Does it trouble you?” she asks.

Revel shrugs. “Most of the time I try not to think about it. It’s like a weird, glowy scar. Now that it’s stopped hurting, I think we can get along.” He puts some optimism in his voice as he waves the hand with the mark around.

Amused, Cassandra smiles. “We take our victories where we can.” She stops walking and faces him, her edges sharpening as she gets into the heart of the matter. “The Breach and your mark are stable, for the moment. This gives us time - time we need to make a second attempt. Solas believes it may succeed, provided the mark has more power. The same level of power used to open the Breach in the first place.”

Revel frowns. “And we’re not going to just find _that_ lying around. But… you have something in mind, don’t you?” He looks up at the grim set of her features.

Cassandra motions her hand to the door at the end of the hall. “That is what we must discuss.”

Leliana and the two shems stand in the next room. Cassandra nods to them, and closes the door.

“This is Commander Cullen, leader of the Inquisition’s forces,” she introduces, gesturing to the man with the fur neckpiece.

“Such as they are,” Cullen says, regret tinging his voice. “We lost many soldiers in the valley, and I fear many more before this is through.” He’s a very handsome shem, even if he has animal draped on his shoulders. The man shifts awkwardly, and Revel realizes he’s been staring.

Cassandra introduces the woman in shiny gold next. “This is Lady Josephine Montilyet, our ambassador and Chief Diplomat.”

“ _Andaran Atish’an_ ,” she says, her voice thick with a rolling accent.

Revel straightens up in excitement. “You speak Elven?”

Josephine giggles modestly. “You just heard the entirety of it, I’m afraid.”

Finally, Cassandra reintroduces Sister Leliana, the spymaster. It’s all very impressive and formal, and Revel feels completely wrong-footed.

“I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but that would be a lie. It’s very intimidating,” he admits. He leans over to Cassandra and whispers, though the others can probably still hear, “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but why am I here? It’s not just for introductions, is it?”

Cassandra thins her lips. “As I mentioned before, your mark needs more power to close the Breach for good,” she explains.

“Which means we must approach the rebel mages for help,” Leliana says.

Cullen turns to look at her, brows furrowed with irritation. “And I still disagree. The templars could serve just as well.”

The shems squabble. Revel slowly eases back as Cassandra, Cullen, and Leliana argue over who would be the most effective ally. He makes eye contact with Josephine, who smiles in a what-can-you-do sort of way. “Unfortunately, neither group will speak to us yet,” she brings up during a pause, raising the quill from her notes. “The Chantry has denounced the Inquisition - and you, specifically.” She points her quill at Revel.

He’s taken aback. “ _Denounced_ me? Why me? I - oh.” He looks down at the mark. They think he’s responsible for killing all of those people, for preventing an end to the war between mages and templars. Maybe even for making the Breach. “They think I’m the one who caused all of this, still.”

“That is not the entirety of it any longer,” Josephine says delicately. “Some are calling you ‘the Herald of Andraste’, and that frightens the Chantry. The remaining clerics have declared it blasphemy, and we heretics for harboring you,” she tells the room at large.

Revel scrunches his nose. “So they _were_ calling me Harold,” he mutters under his breath.

Of course, this is all the Chancellor’s doing. Prick. As it stands, the Inquisition won’t be able to get the support of the mages or the templars.

“But what do you mean by the Herald of Andraste?” Revel asks, frowning. “If it’s that much of a problem, just tell them they’re wrong.”

Josephine glances at Cassandra in some sort of silent conversation, then smiles at him. “It is not as simple as that. In fact, we may be able to press this to our advantage, after we reconcile with some of the Chantry.”

“People saw what you did at the Temple, how you stopped the Breach from growing. They have also heard about the woman seen in the rift when we first found you. They believe that was Andraste,” Cassandra explains, crossing her arms. “You performed a miracle, and so they call you the Herald of Andraste, a savior sent by the Maker.”

Leliana jumps in. “And even if we tried to stop that view from spreading -”

“Which we have not.”

Leliana cuts a sharp look at Cassandra. “The point is, everyone is talking about you.”

The room suddenly feels cramped, tight. Cullen, in an effort to smooth things over, says, “It’s quite the title, isn’t it? How do you feel about that?”

Revel wrings his hands, scowling at Cassandra. “You already know this, but I’m Dalish. I don’t believe in the Maker, and sure, I like Andraste. She helped us out, stopped us from being slaves, you know? But, if she were to send someone as her ‘Herald,’” he says skeptically, “wouldn’t she have sent someone who actually believes?”

Leliana folds her hands behind her back and explains, “People are desperate for a sign of hope. For some, you’re that sign.”

“And to others, a symbol of everything that’s gone wrong,” Josephine adds.

“I think I agree with that last one more,” Revel says, blowing out a breath. He leans on the table and addresses Cullen. “So are they going to attack us? Ignore the Breach? I kind of thought the demons falling from the sky would be more important than little old me.”

Cullen and Josephine explain in irritated tones that while the Chantry recognizes the Breach’s threat, they think that Revel will just screw things up more. Frankly, he kind of agrees. That’s not something the Inquisition wants to hear, though, or deal with. Leliana tells him to meet a Chantry cleric, Mother Giselle, since her support could help turn things around. The woman is tending to the wounded in the Hinterlands near Redcliffe, Leliana says.

“Redcliffe, in Ferelden?” Revel frowns, eyebrows furrowing as he recalls all the places he’d labeled as ‘extra dangerous, DO NOT ENTER’. Kirkwall was one; Redcliffe another. “That’s where all the mages and templars are fighting.”

“Yes. It will be dangerous, but I shall accompany you.” Cassandra steps forward to stand beside him, her presence powerful and reassuring. “We will have our soldiers secure the area before your arrival.”

He’d be flattered if he didn’t know that they need him alive because of the mark, and not because they particularly like him. He shrugs and forces a grin. “Too bad I’m not one of those big and sturdy qunari. I could just stomp my way to her, no guard detail needed.”

“Though a qunari does make for a bigger target,” Cullen says. Revel can’t quite tell if he’s joking or serious.

They’re depending on him for a lot - they need him to deal with the Chantry, they need him to deal with the rifts, they need him to expand the Inquisition’s influence and find agents to work for them using his awe-inspiring existence. Revel is - not sure he can do all this. The clan never depended on him for anything. He brought stuff in, sure, helped out where he could. But he wasn’t Mahanon. People never looked up to him, never expected anything of him. He feels queasy in the stomach. There are too many things that are changing, and he can’t keep up with them all, but this is not something that he can run away from, so he just. Has to bear through it.

“In the meantime, let’s think of other options. I won’t leave this all to the Herald.” Cassandra is fast becoming his favorite human.

She lets him know that he can leave to rest, if he prefers. The rest of them will stay. Josephine spreads out a map of Thedas, and Cullen begins placing little swords and Inquisition signs along it. They’re preparing to decide which operations the Inquisition should undergo, as well as how to perform them. It sounds like it’s all adult talk, like when all the _hahren_ gathered at night to plan where the clan will move next. The children and the young hunters of the clan never joined. Most of them were asleep, then, but Revel had always been awake, watching from a safe distance. He couldn’t sleep without Mahanon, and as the Keeper’s First his older brother always attended.

But this isn’t his clan. He has no real place here; the shems know of their own affairs better than he ever would. So he says his farewells and exits the Chantry.

 

 

 

The crisp mountain air is so _refreshing_ after being cooped up in that dark and gloomy building. Revel stretches in the daylight. If only it weren’t so cold. He rubs his arms. He should head back to the house with all his things and change out of this dinky ceremonial armor. It’s heavy and ornamented with a bunch of shem icons, and it just feels… weird.

He takes a few steps and hears a crash. Heart thumping, he twists around and sees a shem man standing in front of the tavern with his back turned, his stance wide and threatening. He’s yelling at an elven girl. Broken glass and a crushed wooden box lie in pieces around their feet.

The man raises a hand, and Revel dashes forward. “Stop!”

He doesn’t get there in time. The man strikes; the girl falls to the floor, her hand catching on the glass. He turns, face set in an ugly snarl. “Another knife-ear? You got a problem?” he jeers.

Then he sees the armor. And his face falls in open shock.

Revel kneels to help the girl stand. The glass cut deep, and she’s bleeding badly. “Where is your healer?” he asks. The girl sobs and tilts her head to one of the buildings close by.

“T-The apothecary.” She slides out of his reach, intent on leaving as soon as possible. “I-I can walk on my own, ser. Thank you.”

Revel watches her leave, fury building in him. There are so many ways he could deal with this shem - so many ways to rip him apart and teach him a lesson. Filth like this - dirty fucking -

“Herald, ser, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see that,” the man simpers behind him. Revel turns to look at him, his face cold and blank.

If Revel hadn’t seen it, the man wouldn’t be sorry at all.

“Are you a man of the Maker?” he asks. The man, wide-eyed and frenetic, nods.

There are so many ways. It’s a shame he can’t sink a knife into his throat, but there are other methods to achieve the same ends. Chancellor Roderick’s sneer flashes in his mind, and he knows what to do.

Revel beams, his eyes full of warmth. “I have a message for you, from your Maker,” he says cheerfully. The man looks ecstatic, practically pissing his pants already. In a dreamy and mystical tone, Revel utters, “You must go on a pilgrimage, my child. Walk thirty miles to the north, then another thirty, then three. There, at the end, she will be waiting.”

“She?” the man repeats, hanging onto his every word. “Who is ‘she’?”

“Andraste, of course,” Revel says, still with a dreamy tone. “She will be waiting with your reward. She understands your plight, your sacrifice, your devotion. But you must hurry, for,” he sighs wistfully, “she will only remain until the first day of Pluitanis.”

The man cries out in despair. “But that’s so soon!”

“You must go.” Revel clasps a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You cannot miss this chance. You must depart immediately.”

The man nods fervently. “I shall. I shall! Thank you, Herald! Maker bless you!”

He bursts into action, nearly running into the building behind him - to gather his things, probably. Revel, unable to contain himself, shouts out “Wait!” The man freezes, looking back at him. Still smiling, Revel says, “I have one last message.” And he intones, loudly and joyfully, “ _Fenedhis lasa_.”

“What - what does that mean?” the man asks, baffled.

“You will come to understand,” Revel replies, already walking away. “Now go! Andraste awaits!”

He opens the door to the apothecary and peeks in. The elven girl is there, flinching as a man in robes dabs at her hand with cloth. Revel steps inside and closes the door as quietly as possible. She seems… okay. Not ‘fine’, but at least she’s getting proper treatment. The healer glances over at him only once, but other than a passing flicker in his eyes he doesn’t seem at all interested in Revel. It’s oddly nice, considering how everyone else seems to trip over themselves with misplaced awe or simmering rage whenever he walks by. He feels himself relaxing now that no one’s watching him for holiness - or lack thereof.

There’s another man shuffling flasks around on a desk. “If you’re hurt, you can wait in line!” He grumbles, probably more to himself than to Revel, “Damn soldiers always getting injuries, even when they’re not fighting. It’s not like we’re not made of elfroot. I can’t keep up with this.”

He heaves an aggravated sigh. “If only I took the damn notes!” He turns and catches sight of Revel, who’s still lingering by the door. Then he laughs joylessly. “Look who’s back from the dead. Again.”

Now that’s an interesting reaction. “Have we met before?” Revel asks, frowning.

“You weren’t particularly coherent when we did.” The man is blunt, and sounds more like he’s laughing at Revel more than with him. “Someone had to patch you up after you staggered out of Maker-knows-where, though, so you’re welcome. I’m Adan, by the way. The one patching up the elf is my assistant.”

He’s plenty rude for a healer. Makes Revel feel right back at home with Healer Alandoriel. “Thanks for not leaving me for the worms,” he says cheerily.

The man brushes him off. “Yeah, well. You can pay me back by fixing the world.”

“I should use that to settle all my debts,” Revel says, settling against the wall. He watches Adan’s assistant bandage the girl’s hand. “’Why yes, I _do_ owe you twenty royals, but I’ll pay you back by saving the world from destruction.’ That’s a fair deal, I think.”

Adan grunts in response, already disinterested in conversation. The assistant finishes tying the bandages, and the elven girl stands, hesitation in her every movement.

“ _Falon, hamin_ ,” he tells her. When she doesn’t react, he switches to the Common tongue. “Relax, friend. He won’t hurt you again.” At this, she looks at him with wide eyes, then catches herself.

“Yes, ser,” she says, immediately casting her gaze to the ground. She leaves despite his attempts to talk to her - she says she’ll get in more trouble if she dallies, and it’s obviously distressing her, so he lets her go.

It’s nauseating how she doesn’t believe him, how she just accepts how things are. It’s not right. He needs to do something more than just tricking people away and - and - and he _can_. He can talk to Cassandra and Leliana and Cullen and Josephine and get them to order their shems, make them stop treating the elves as lesser. It’s mindblowing, somehow, to realize that he is actually in a position to make people listen to him. It’s - insane.

But Cassandra and the others are likely still discussing in the Chantry, so that has to wait until later.

Giddy, Revel offers to help Adan gather elfroot (though he gets gruffly told to talk to Quartermaster Threnn for that), and to find those notes he was talking about (which are apparently somewhere out past the camp). Revel leaves the apothecary with a spring in his step. The bad mood he’d gathered from earlier dissipates like smoke. He’s made even more glad when he sees that the shit-for-brains shem is gone, though he hears some soldiers complaining that the tavern doesn’t have a tavernmaster anymore. Oops.

He continues on, smiling to himself, and is about to descend the stairs when he whimsically glances to the side and sees Solas’s face staring right back at him. He startles.

“ _Dread Wolf’s balls!_ ” he curses, clutching a hand to the front of his armor. Solas regards him with a flat expression. “You scared me, _hahren_.”

“You should be more aware of your surroundings. I have been here since before you arrived.”

Revel blinks. “All this time? Then - you saw what the _shem_ was doing to that girl. You did nothing?” he asks, frowning.

“As you might have noticed, I am an apostate mage, and templars surround us. Starting a fight would only lead to greater trouble, and possibly even my death. I had intended to intervene peacefully, until you appeared. You handled it rather well.” He sounds faintly disapproving, though his face remains inscrutably neutral.

“That’s - thanks,” Revel says. His brows furrow with worry. “Is it that dangerous for you, though? Being here?”

“Cassandra has been accommodating, but you understand my caution.”

Revel frowns, disliking how even Solas isn’t safe here. He waves the hand with the mark. “She has to protect you. You’re the only one who knows anything about this thing and how it works. We’ll be completely lost without you.” He looks up at the other elf decisively. “I’ll talk to her, and I’ll make sure the _shemlen_ won’t touch you.”

“You do have that power, as the Chosen of Andraste,” Solas agrees. Revel grimaces at the title.

“Andraste’s Herald. That’s me,” he says, with a sardonic grin. The older elf regards him with a piercing stare.

“Joke as you will, posturing is necessary.” He walks a few steps to gaze out into the horizon. When Revel joins him, he continues. “I’ve journeyed deep into the Fade and ancient ruins and battlefields to see the dreams of lost civilizations. I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clashed to reenact the bloody past and ancient wars both famous and forgotten.” He turns to look down at Revel. “Every great war has its heroes. I’m just curious what kind you’ll be.”

“I’m still at the part where you said you go into the Fade and see ancient ruins.” Revel narrows his eyes. “You can’t just say that and not tell me more.”

And for the first time since they’d met, Solas looks genuinely pleased. The man explains all sorts of things - about the Fade, and spirits, and demons, and magic. They switch to speaking in Elven in the middle of it as a precaution against any listeners. It’s exciting to hear about all these things - and terrifying, in a way, too. Being a mage means being connected to an entire other world, and he thinks he can understand a little better the way Mahanon’s eyes would sometimes drift off to somewhere far away. These are things he will never truly understand, but he wants to. It’s… it helps.

Eventually, Solas brings the conversation to an end. “There is far too much than can be explained in a single day,” he says. Revel is prepared to badger him into telling more stories - let no one say he is nothing if not persistent - when the man asks, “So what do you intend, as the Herald of Andraste? You are in a position of power no elf has come close to in centuries, save, perhaps, for the Hero of Ferelden.”

Revel’s lips twist, mood dampened by the return to this strange reality. He sighs and looks off at the Breach, kicks at the dirt with his boots. “ _Saying it makes me feel like a traitor to my kin, but if being the messenger of Andraste means I can do good then it is worth enduring_ ,” he mutters in Elven.

“I see.”

“I should go.” Revel still needs to collect elfroot and the notes. He can talk to Cassandra and the others tomorrow.

“ _Dareth shiral,_ ” Solas says.

 


	3. Safe Place

The following day finds Revel in the wilds outside camp. He can’t stand being pressed in with all those shems, and he needs some time alone, so he leaves as soon as dawn breaks. He stretches his limbs, dashing through the snow and leaping along the cliffs. He nearly crashes into a druffalo up along the mountains, but he ends up finding a good place for a logging stand while running desperately for his life, so he counts it as a victory.

He’d set up a small camp next to his brother’s grave and spends most of his time there. He hasn’t had proper sleep in days, only catching a few naps whenever he was alone in his tent, away from the noise of the main camp. There’s just something awful about the house they’d given him. Maybe he’s just incompatible with beds and houses. He just can’t bring himself to relax there at all. He misses his ara’vel, misses kicking his cold toes onto his brother’s back. It’s miserably cold outside of Haven, but he prefers being alone in the cold to being watched and scrutinized every time he steps out, even when he’s going to take a piss.

By the time it’s proper morning, he heads back to Haven with a bag full of elfroot, a handful of notes, and two nugs slung to his hip. The cooks insisted that he doesn’t need to hunt for them, but he feels too guilty eating without giving back. He treads across the frozen lake outside the camp. The air is loud with smacks and shouts. The soldiers are doing their morning practice, sparring as Cullen oversees them. The man glances over and sees him, eyebrows raised high. Revel waves respectably as several soldiers turn, and snickers inwardly when Cullen scolds them.

As he gets closer he sees Cassandra mauling a training dummy with a practice sword. She’s absolutely ferocious, and Revel is extremely glad to not be on the other end of her blade.

“I think we need stronger training dummies,” he says once he’s close enough. “Maybe we can commission one out of dragonbone. It’ll last a little longer, probably.”

“Herald,” Cassandra greets, the disgusted moue of her face smoothing out.

“I knew a Harold once. Let’s just say he’s not the type of man I’d want to be named for.” He comes to a stop a few feet away from the shattered dummy and eyes it. Yikes. “Anyway, I need to talk to you. Whenever you’re not busy.” There’s a templar eyeing him from between some tents, and a couple of soldiers around a firepit are gawking.

Cassandra drops her sword and adjusts her gloves as she approaches. “We can talk now. What did you need?”

“I, um.” The soldiers at the firepit have multiplied. They’re all staring into the fire, dead silent. “I have to go, actually. Need to bring in these supplies I gathered. Busy day and… all that.”

Cassandra glances to the side, an emotion flickering across her face before disappearing. “Then I shall accompany you,” she declares, meeting his eyes. “Let us go.”

They advance through the gate, the guards saluting Cassandra. He sees Varric when they climb up the stairs to the inner camp, and he nods in greeting. The dwarf winks back, prompting a disgusted noise from Cassandra.

“I’ve read his books,” Revel blurts nervously, once they’ve passed him. Cassandra startles, and he shoots her a concerned look, but she’s not looking at him. “Is something wrong?” he asks, stopping.

“No, not at all. Please, continue,” she says, pointedly staring straight ahead.

“Okay,” he says slowly, resuming his pace. One of the townsmen lingers at a doorway, and two Chantry women burst into whispers. “Anyway. I’ve heard people say his books aren’t good, but I read them all the time when I was younger. They’re how I learned to read Common.” He chuckles. “And speak it, too, to be honest. With my… with my brother’s help, of course.”

“You speak Elven with your clan, I presume.”

He hums, fidgeting with his hands. “Not quite. Most clans speak Common, actually. There are just a few that primarily speak Elven, and Lavellan isn’t one of them. But that’s not the point. The point is…” He frowns. “I don’t think there is a point, actually. It’s just weird to meet the man whose books I’ve pretty much obsessed over. It’s kind of intimidating, and I don’t know how to approach him. I,” he waves out a hand, “wanted to get it out, I guess.”

“I,” Cassandra falters. “I understand.”

“But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” Revel clarifies. They’ve reached the center of the Haven camp, and Revel hands the elfroot to Threnn (who keeps mentioning that they need iron, too, as if he’s actually going to bother lugging that back), the notes to Adan, and the nugs to the cook.

He goes into the Chantry and heads to the back room. Leliana is probably there, but that’s fine. As soon as the doors close, he collapses into a chair and groans.

“Are you all right?” Cassandra demands, stomping over. “Were you hurt?” Leliana looks up from the suspicious pile of papers she’s poring over.

“Completely fine, don’t mind me. Just appreciating the finer parts of human culture.” He curls up, dragging his feet onto the cushy seat as he pulls his legs to his chest. Ahh, bliss. “I’d prefer if you sat down, too. It makes me nervous when you tower around like that.”

Cassandra grunts disapprovingly, but sits down nevertheless. “What is this about?”

Revel takes a deep breath, clasping his hands in front of his knees. Here it goes. “Yesterday,” he begins, then stops.

Cassandra raises her eyebrows.

“Yesterday,” he begins again. “After I left, I saw a shem man beat a girl, and from people’s complete nonreactions it seems to me that this kind of shit happens every other day.” Outraged, Cassandra opens her mouth, and he holds up a hand, heart beating against his chest. “She was an elf, by the way. I tried to stop him, and he turned around and called me a knife-ear. Then he saw the armor - which was surprisingly useful for this situation, by the way - and he was all, ‘Herald!’. So I told him to leave.” He can hear his blood pumping in his ears. He’s staring at Cassandra for her reaction; she looks angry, but then again, when does she not? He adds, “And Solas was there. He was just watching because he thought the templars would come stab him if he saved an innocent girl from being beaten. Because he’s, you know, an elven apostate. So. Something needs to change.”

And he waits.

Cassandra nods. She looks down, her brows furrowed into a deep vee. She hasn’t slapped him and told him to mind his place yet, so things seem to be working out so far. “It is completely unacceptable,” she says at last. “I have no excuses.”

“Well,” he says after a pause. “I wasn’t looking for excuses.”

“You have my word that this is not the kind of behavior we tolerate in the Inquisition,” she says, gathering herself. She sits up straight, her eyes fierce. “Every person who helps us - be they human, elf, dwarf, or qunari - is an important ally. What happened is unacceptable. I will not allow it to happen again.” She stands. “I will inform Commander Cullen. We will need to have a meeting with the soldiers and let them know that this behavior cannot stand, and that we should not turn a blind eye to it. Josephine must be told as well.”

Revel releases the breath he’d been holding in, drooping against the chair. This is more than he’d hoped for. “Where is Josephine?” he asks. “I can tell her while you talk to the Commander.”

“Her office is through the first door to the right. If you will excuse me.” Cassandra makes to leave, then pauses at the door. She turns to face him. “You brought this to me out of trust. I will not fail you.” And she leaves.

“That man was the bartender, yes?” Leliana asks suddenly. Revel almost falls out of the chair in shock. He’d forgotten she was here.

“The one I chased off? Yeah, I think so. How did you know?” He twists around to look at her. She smiles, and not kindly. Ah, yes, spymaster.

“I can arrange an accident along his ‘pilgrimage’, if you like,” she offers. She has now usurped Cassandra’s place of number one on the Terrifying Shem Women list, and he vows to himself to never piss her off.

“Kind offer,” he replies with a forced smile. “But no, thank you. Assassinations. Not my style.”

Leliana hums and returns to her suspicious papers. “Everyone has their preferences,” she says in a vaguely amused tone. _Never_ , he vows again.

 

 

Josephine is absolutely appalled when he tells her. He almost feels bad; it’s obvious she has great respect for people who aren’t _shemlen_ , a rare and admirable trait amongst the many who don’t.

“ _Completely unacceptable,_ ” she grinds out, scribbling onto her papers with flourish. “I will take care of this, Herald, I assure you.”

“Right. Well, you do your thing,” he says, slowly backing out of the room. Josephine is a force of her own. It’s quickly becoming apparent that none of the women in the Inquisition are to be crossed, if one wants to live. He flees.

He seeks out Solas once he’s outside, but the man is nowhere to be seen. Disappointed, Revel kicks at the dirt. He can’t go outside the camp since Cullen will be there and so too will Cassandra, and that’d just be awkward. He clunks down the steps, deciding he might as well sit around in the house he’d sort-of been living in.

Halfway there, he runs across Varric. The dwarf waves him over, roguish grin firmly in place.

“Well if it isn’t the Herald of Andraste,” he greets. Revel tries not to grimace, but by Varric’s chuckle he doesn’t think he succeeds. “You look worse than a nug dragged out of Darktown. I saw the Seeker stomp out looking like she was about to set the whole camp on fire; you had something to do with that?”

“You could say that.”

Varric crosses his arms. “What, not going to give me the details?” Revel flicks his gaze towards the one, two, three, four onlookers and eavesdroppers. Yeah, no.

“You’ll find out eventually. If it’s as big of a problem as I think it is.”

Varric sighs, shaking his head. “So that’s all I’ll be getting out of you, huh? Fine, fine.” He raises his hands in defeat, and quirks a smile. “Let’s talk about something else. So, now that Cassandra isn’t with you - how are you holding up? You just went from being the most wanted man in Thedas to a religious icon. That can’t have been easy.”

“You mean people _don’t_ spend their lives being spat on one moment, worshiped the next?” he snarks, unable to contain himself.

“Well, no. From what I’ve seen, there’s usually an in-between of about three years.”

A smile stretches across Revel’s face. “You’re talking about Hawke.”

“The one and only.” Varric sighs wistfully.

“I, ah, I have some questions about him, if you don’t mind.” Revel twists his hands. It’s fine to ask, right? Varric’s right there, and - it’s not so strange to just be talking about books. By Fen’Harel’s balls, it’s not that interesting - _go away_ , he wills at the woman lingering a few feet behind Varric, scowling.

“Don’t tell me you’re a critic,” Varric jokes, seeing the expression on Revel’s face. He laughs as the expression drops to panic. “It’s fine. Shoot.”

Varric answers patiently, with a tired tone that tells Revel he’s been asked these questions dozens of times before. It’s hard to contain his excitement - Hawke really _did_ fight the Arishok and pirates and blood mages and _living statues_.

Wide-eyed, Revel murmurs, “I really wish I could meet him.” Varric chuckles.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Varric sits on a crude wooden bench, and pats the space next to him. “Now I have some questions of my own, if you don’t mind my asking.”

Revel sits next to him stiffly. He opens his mouth to tell him to go ahead, and sees Cassandra and Cullen storming up the steps. Cassandra’s eyes narrow when she sees Varric sitting in front of him, but Cullen just nods in greeting. Varric innocently fiddles with some metal bits in his hands, seemingly not paying any attention to the rest of the world.

“So, you said you’re a Dalish elf?” Varric asks as soon as they’re gone. He looks up, a sparkle in his eye - he definitely knew what he was doing, and Revel feels immensely grateful. He doesn’t feel much for being dragged back to the Chantry to discuss what should be done. He trusts Cassandra and Josephine to make things right, and he’d much rather leave it up to them.

Revel folds his hands over his knees and answers. “Yes, I am.” He hears some hushed titters - no doubt this is going to spread throughout the camp. He hopes this means no one’s going to ask him to kiss any babies, considering how half of Thedas likes to think the Dalish eat them, or something.

Varric leans forward and gestures to his face. “But you don’t have the tattoos.”

“The _vallaslin_ ,” Revel corrects. “We get them when we reach adulthood. I, um. Obviously haven’t.”

“And they still let you go?” Varric asks, tilting his head. “That doesn’t sound like them.”

Revel recalls that one of Hawke’s friends had been a Dalish - Merrill. From what he’d read, she’d seemed very… well, in any case, Revel doesn’t know how Varric thinks he can say what’s ‘like the Dalish’ if the one he’d known the most was like _that_ , all… innocent and trusting and blood mage-y, but he just shrugs. “They didn’t want to, of course. I had to… persuade the Keeper.” And in the end, it hadn’t been for any good.

“Somehow I don’t think you mean ‘asking politely’. But I get it.” Varric stands up, dusting off his pants. “By the way, you really look like you could use some rest.”

“Don’t you know? The Herald never sleeps,” he jokes.

“And he looks like it.” There’s sharpness in Varric’s gaze now, but he covers it moments later with a smile. “Get some shut-eye, Pearls. Oh, and before you go - there’s something for you in your cabin.”

Blinking in confusion - did Varric just call him _Pearls?_ \- Revel obediently shuffles off. He goes to his shem house and blinks at the package lying on the bed. He opens the bag to find clothes. It’s a uniform, grey and green, the same uniform as the Inquisition scouts, and it comes with gloves. A grin overtakes his face. He abandons the fancy tan clothing he’d been forced to wear and slips on the uniform, hoisting the hood over his head. He looks just like any other elf, now, or maybe even a really small shem. He stuffs the tan thing into the bag and sets off to his camp on the outskirts of Haven after checking to make sure no one’s watching. Absolutely no one looks at him twice. It’s fantastic. He hums when he reaches the camp, and takes the time to dust the snow off his brother’s grave. That done, he clambers into the tent (is it just him, or is it warmer than before?) and curls up under the furs. It takes just minutes before he drops off to sleep.

 

 

Revel lets out a massive yawn when he wakes up, stretching luxuriously. It’s so warm and toasty inside, mm. He snuggles back into his furs. He’ll wait until Mahanon comes back to get up - but wait, he can smell something cooking outside. He must already be back.

He rises and jumps out of the ara’vel. His parents’ grave is bursting with crystal grace, the flower bells tinkling softly in the breeze. There’s a fire burning a few feet away; Solas sits beside it. There’s a pot set above the fire, and Mahanon’s there, stirring it. It smells delicious; it’s the same soup he always makes to comfort Revel whenever he falls ill.

Neither of them are looking at him. Solas stares into the pot as Mahanon stirs. Revel treads across the snow and sits beside his brother. Mahanon’s face is serene, framed by the delicate heart-shaped _vallaslin_ of Sylaise, the Hearthkeeper. Revel burrows himself against his brother’s side, and Mahanon raises an arm to hug him. The feeling is comforting, and so warm. Revel breathes in the scent of elfroot and crystal grace and stew. He misses it so much. He doesn’t want this to end. He closes his eyes, and everything disappears.

He opens his eyes.

He’s warm under the furs, but he throws them off and bursts out the tent. The cold bites at his skin, and he shivers into his clothes. There’s no one there; the firepit is cold and barren, and the grave has a light blanket of snow. Revel rubs at his eyes, wiping away the tears before they freeze on his face.

It’s still daylight. He must have slept for only a few hours, but he feels fully rested and jitters with energy. He smiles into the chilly air, the scent of stew and elfroot still lingering.

He goes running, kicking up snow and scaring nugs. He clambers up some of the steep rocks and slides down, sprinting off the edges and landing in the thick snow. He laughs joyfully, feeling lifted of a heavy weight that had been crushing him since the day of the Breach. He leaps and soars and rolls about, enjoying the stretch of his limbs and the freedom of isolation. It feels like it’s been years since the last time he’d done this. He doesn’t know how long he spends running around, but it’s probably a good amount of time. When he’s finally out of breath, he lies down on the snowy ground, staring up at the sky. The Breach stares back, like a great green eye. Revel glowers and tosses some snow up at it. The snow falls back on his face. Ugh.

He sits up, wondering if there’s anything he should be doing. Have Cassandra and Cullen finished their talk about good and proper treatment of elves? Maybe they’re sitting around the big table again, sticking miniature swords around Thedas and planning how to conquer the world. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know, either. Not right now, at least.

He rolls to his feet and dusts off the snow. Might as well go exploring. Maybe he really should try to pick off some iron? There was a whole lot along this one side of the mountain, and it wasn’t too far from Haven, either.

Revel heads in that direction, jogging and dashing whenever he gets in the mood for it. At one point he leaps off a cliff, laughing as he lands in an explosion of powdery snow. Chuckling, he turns around and comes face to face with a druffalo.

Fen’Harel’s _balls_. Revel sprints in the opposite direction.

The druffalo bellows, the sound ripping through the sky. He hears the beast charge, its hooves thudding and shaking the ground.

Sweat drips down Revel’s face as he jumps up a ledge, clinging to the rock as the druffalo rams its horns into the stone. The ledge shatters. Shit. Revel’s feet scrape against the rock as he climbs up onto a more stable perch.

Breathing heavily, he looks around. The thing he’s on is nothing more than an isolated stone outcropping, a spire sticking out of the snow. There’s no way to escape. He’s going to be stuck here until the druffalo’s gone, treed up the stone like a cat chased by a dog. Great.

The druffalo snorts and walks away. Revel’s heart fills with hope. Then the druffalo turns and charges again, the base of the stone spire crumbling and cracking.

Revel’s eyes bulge out of their sockets. “ _Mythal, I beg you, please don’t let me die here,_ ” he yells, clinging to the face of the stone. This is the _worst_. Out of everything - demons, deadly swordswomen, the gods-damned Breach - a _druffalo_ is what kills him? The beast backs up, ready for another try. Revel screws his eyes shut.

Then he hears someone shouting.

There’s a soldier running towards him with a shield and sword out. He’s yelling at the druffalo and trying to distract it. Revel pales. What in the name of the gods is this man doing?

The druffalo, successfully taunted, turns away from Revel and charges at the soldier. Revel cringes, wondering if he’s going to witness someone get impaled right before his eyes - but the man dodges at the last second and slashes at the druffalo’s side. The beast roars, a gush of red springing out, and turns to charge again.

Revel watches, wide-eyed, as the man dances around the druffalo, evading its horns and redirecting its force with his shield. He balances his defense with careful attacks, taking the opportunities as they come. Revel’s heart soars. He can’t believe this guy is taking on a druffalo by himself and actually winning!

But he thought that too soon. The man slips in the snow, cursing. He falls as the druffalo begins its charge, and there’s no way he can get out of its path. Shit! Revel scrambles for his knives - they’re there in his hands and he springs from the rock, feet landing on the druffalo’s back. He brings the knives down and sinks them into the furry neck. The druffalo bellows and bucks wildly, blood raining everywhere. Revel grits his teeth and hangs on for dear life.

The soldier is back on his feet. He dashes to the side, picks up his sword, and stabs. The beast groans, sagging under Revel’s weight, finally collapsing onto the snow.

There’s a silence, punctuated by Revel and the soldier’s panting breaths.

“By the Maker, that was a close one,” the man says, sheathing his sword. He looks up at Revel and offers him a hand. “You all right?”

Revel takes the hand, sliding off the druffalo’s corpse with the soldier’s help. Ugh, he’d just gotten these clothes and now they’re full of blood. “As good as one can be when covered in druffalo bits.”

“I suppose this wasn’t the afternoon either of us expected, but it could be worse.” The man smiles handsomely, and then his eyes widen, a shocked laugh erupting from his mouth. Revel panics - _oh Mythal, he knows I’m the Herald and he just had to save my ass_ \- and then the man chuckles, “ _You’re_ an elf!”

Um. “Yeah?” Revel says slowly, heart calming down. “Is there something strange about that?”

The man flushes. Mortified, he says, “No! I wasn’t - that is -” He pauses, dropping his reddened face into his hand. “Earlier this afternoon, the Commander gave us all a scathing lecture-”

Revel cuts the man off there, getting the picture. He has to make sure to thank Cullen later. “Well, you did just save my life. I think that excuses you for the next few unintentional laughs.”

“Still, I’m sorry,” the man says sincerely, and he smiles, all bashful and charming. “I’m Dwyn of Amaranthine, soldier of the Inquisition. May I ask for your name?”

Revel wipes the blood off his knives, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You can, and I might even answer.”

The soldier awkwardly stands around, waiting, probably. Revel turns to poke at the dead druffalo. It’s so massive. It’s still warm, too. He kind of wants the fur for himself.

Dwyn makes an oh sound and crunches through the snow to stand beside him. “What is your name?” he asks properly, and Revel laughs.

“Rev. Also of the Inquisition, obviously.”

Dwyn nods, accepting his answer without a trace of doubt. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Rev.” He gives him a funny look, lips almost laughing. “I heard you shouting when the druffalo attacked. I’m not sure you’d make for a good scout, if you’re going to reveal your location to everything within a five mile radius.”

“I… can’t even argue that,” Rev admits. Then he starts cackling. “You’re _so_ right. I’m a _terrible_ scout!” Dwyn looks baffled but politely smiles.

“So. What were you doing out here, Dwyn? Missing patrols? Saving the elves?” Revel asks, rolling his arms as he glances around. They’re still far from the path; it’s a miracle that there was anyone around to hear him.

Dwyn hums, turning his gaze out towards Haven’s direction. “It’s my off time. The cooks can always use fresh game, so I thought I’d try my hand at hunting something for them.”

They both turn to look at the druffalo.

“Well, that is something.”

Dwyn smiles. “Indeed.”

 

 

Dwyn ends up leaving to fetch some off-duty soldiers who can help drag back the carcass. Revel offers to keep watch; when the soldier goes, he sets to work skinning the druffalo and gathering up its fur. He stays just long enough to hear the soldiers stomping through the snow before he leaves. He hauls the skin back to a river and spends the rest of the daylight cleaning it. When evening approaches, he heads back to his camp and digs out the ugly tan clothes with too many buttons. He puts them back on and leaves for Haven just in time for supper.

He sees Cullen and Cassandra sitting on a bench around a fire, deep in discussion. They look worried. All around the rest of the camp, soldiers and townspeople cheer as food starts being served. Revel approaches the military heads of the Inquisition, anxiety seeping back into his bones with an unsettling buzz.

“Good evening,” he greets, and their heads snap up.

“Where have you been?” Cassandra demands, standing, her eyes narrowed in anger.

Cullen stands as well, but sedately. “Cassandra,” he warns, tilting a head towards a group of nearby soldiers. Cassandra sighs, aggravated, and glares at Revel until he sits. Cassandra and Cullen follow suit.

“We’d lost track of your whereabouts after the meeting.” Cassandra leans forward, the fire casting dangerous shadows on her face. “No one knew where you were. Not in Haven. Not in your camp. Possibly dead or in danger.” She curls her lip. “I did not want to think any of our soldiers capable of harming the Herald…”

“I leave all the time,” Revel says, taken aback. “It’s not like I tell people when I’m going. You never cared before, and besides, I thought the meeting went well?”

Cullen’s mouth pulls wryly. “It did. Or so we thought, until you went missing.”

“I didn’t _go missing_.”

“No one saw you when you left,” Cassandra says, her always-aggressive tone putting Revel on edge.

“So what, when you see me leave the gates you have me followed like a child sent on an errand?” he snaps. And at the shifty-eyed glances Cullen and Cassandra share, he curses, “Are you serious? _Fenedhis lasa_.” He only just stops himself from jumping to his feet and storming off. Instead, he crosses his arms and glares, gritting his teeth.

He can’t believe he’s been watched this entire time. He can’t believe they - he thought - it’s like he’s still their prisoner, only given the illusion of freedom. “I am not a child,” he grinds out. “I don’t need to be watched.”

“But you are a child,” Cassandra states, frowning. “You yourself said you are not yet an adult.”

“I told that to Varric.” So they’ve been spying on him in camp, too. He gets to his feet. That’s it. He turns to Cullen and tells the man, “Thank you for speaking to your soldiers. I appreciate it.” Then he walks off.

He can’t go back to the shem house. It feels dirty, like there might be eyes watching him sleep through the windows and reporting back to Cassandra. No, to Leliana, isn’t it? It’s far too late to walk back to his camp, as well. He might be a _child_ but he’s not a _complete_ idiot.

Snarling, he turns and heads up a flight of steps. He raps his knuckles on the door of the first house to the right, and waits. After a moment the door opens and Solas appears. The elf smiles in that enigmatic way of his.

“Greetings. This is an unusual time for a visit,” Solas says. If he notices the murderous expression on Revel’s face, he doesn’t show it. Revel takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.

“ _Greetings, hahren. I would like to ask a favor_.” The man’s eyes narrow, his head tilting. He takes a step back, leaving the door open. Revel enters the house, his tense shoulders drooping as Solas closes the door.

“ _Aneth ara. What can I do for you?_ ”

“ _I cannot stay in the dwelling given to me,_ ” Revel explains, looking down at his feet. “ _I do not feel safe. I am watched. I…_ ” He huffs. “ _It cannot be my safe place._ ”

Solas remains silent for a moment, his gaze full of scrutiny. “Strange,” he says, “that they would watch you to keep you safe, yet it is that very act which causes you harm.” Then, in Elven: “ _My safe place is yours_.”

Revel heaves a grateful sigh. “ _A thousand thanks, Solas._ ”

 

 

He outright avoids Cassandra the next day, pointedly walking away whenever she tries to approach him. Maybe that’s childish behavior, but he is a _child_ , so whatever. At one point he even attaches himself to Varric, following the dwarf around just to see her lip curl. Varric, amazing man that he is, doesn’t ask questions, only watches in amusement.

When he eventually decides he needs to go back out to his camp, he stands at Haven’s gate with his arms crossed and waits. After a few minutes, a scout steps out of the shadows. Revel looks at her carefully blank face and has to suppress a scowl. It takes everything he has to remain neutral as he says, “Congratulations on babysitting duty. Let’s go.”

He bets there are at least two more still in hiding.

The first thing Revel does when he reaches camp is sweep the snow off the grave and pay his respects. He can’t speak to his brother like he normally does - there are too many people listening in - so he just mutters simple phrases in Elven, ones that Mahanon would understand. After, he heads to the river and climbs up the tree where he’d left the druffalo fur to hang. It’s a little frosty in his arms as he gathers it up, but it’s still really nice. He leaps down from the branch, his gaze catching on a startled movement behind a distant tree. _There’s one_ , he thinks wryly.

Revel takes the pelt back to his camp so that he can start removing the leftover flesh. He’ll need to find a proper place to stretch and dry it later. He might have to take it back to Haven. Hopefully the soldiers won’t notice their dear Herald carrying the hide of the druffalo they brought back for supper yesterday.

Then he goes hunting for more elfroot and innocent nugs. He wonders if the spies are disillusioned from having to watch him chase down the little rabbit-pigs as they dart through the snow. Then again, if they’re the same ones as before they’ve already seen him frolicking and cursing out druffalo, so he supposes he shouldn’t be too worried about that.

He does come across some iron, though. His bag is already laden with elfroot, and he’s definitely not strong enough to carry it in his arms, so he turns around to the treeline. The scout who’d revealed herself is almost as slim as he is, and he’s not cruel enough to force this on her. “Hey,” he calls out. “Whichever one of you has the strongest arms: how do you feel about carrying rocks?”

He doesn’t get an answer, so he faces the iron and talks loudly to himself as he chips it out of the stone wall. “I guess I’ll have to carry this back myself then. Let’s hope I don’t trip and fall and die! That would be embarrassing! The Inquisition’s Herald, dead from clumsiness!”

A stocky dwarf appears at his elbow. She doesn’t say a word, but she has an annoyed sort of aura, and Revel counts this as a success.

He mines a few more spots of iron, just to piss her off some more.

They walk back to Haven full of supplies for the Inquisition’s requisitions. He hands everything off to Threnn, who looks as unimpressed as ever. Now that he’s here, Revel looks at the nearby tent-station and wonders if he should go up to Leliana and thank her for the manual laborers she’s sent him, but then he remembers his vow to not get on her bad side. Instead, he goes into the Chantry to talk to Josephine. He hasn’t spoken much with the golden woman so far, and he’s curious what she has to say about the complete non-existence of his privacy. When he walks through the door, though, he finds her in conversation with a stupidly-dressed man with a stupid accent and a weird mask. He backs up, prepared to close the door and pretend this never happened, but Josephine looks right at him and smiles evilly.

She introduces him to Marquis Something-or-another, who apparently owns Haven. He honestly can’t understand most of what the man says, so he smiles vapidly and agrees with Josephine whenever they look at him for input.

“I’m glad you’re here to take care of this,” he says, once the Marquis is gone. “I’m pretty sure no one else here has the patience to deal with all these pricks.”

Josephine smiles. “Thank you. I must admit, it can be very trying, but it is also rewarding. For the most part.” She retakes the seat behind her desk and dips a quill in ink. “Now that you are here, Herald, I must inform you that Leliana’s scouts have reported back from the Hinterlands. You may speak with her about the details, if you wish.”

“Great. Time to meet the Mother,” he says, with more excitement than he feels.


	4. Burning

Revel sits awkwardly in the war council room as the heads of the Inquisition arrive, one by one. Leliana had called the meeting for him. Apparently there are important things to discuss.

The scout’s report says that everything’s crap in the Hinterlands. Apostates and templars running amok, blowing everything to bits. Revel’s excited, in the ‘oh Mythal I hope I don’t get set on fire’ kind of way. The Mother Giselle stupidly insists on staying to heal the wounded (though he can grudgingly admire her dedication), so Revel and his band of friends will have to go meet her. Also mentioned was the scout’s inability to contact Horsemaster Dennet and secure some dashing steeds for the Inquisition. Can horses even live here in the snow? He doesn’t ask.

“Should I try and find him after meeting the Mother?”

Cullen arches a brow. “If you find yourself there, certainly, though I doubt you’ll just stumble across him. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Your priority should be the rifts; let our soldiers deal with the rest.”

Cassandra grunts. Looking at Revel she says, “I will keep you safe along the way.” ‘Even if you don’t want me to,’ Revel imagines her silently thinking. He stretches out his arms in the way that he knows makes him look extra-flippant.

“Oh, out in the field, surrounded by people who can kill me with a glance? I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather hide behind.” Cullen bites his lip as if suppressing a chuckle, and Revel beams.

Cassandra’s eyes narrow and she crosses her arms. Revel can’t tell if she’s angry or if it’s just her natural intimidation. He wonders if she’d make that face even when confronted with cute little baby animals. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“We’re taking other people, right?” he confirms. “Solas, Varric.”

“You can ask,” she says, which means _yes_.

 

 

The trip to the Hinterlands is going to be hilariously uncomfortable, Revel predicts, and he’s right. In order to maximize their travel time, the party sets off from Haven with just the four of them. Revel ends up a little disappointed that they don’t bring tents - he’d been hoping to force Cassandra and Varric to share one, ha! - but it’s still wonderfully unpleasant by the time evening rolls around.

Cassandra insists on keeping watch throughout the night. Varric makes an attempt to convince her that rest is, actually, not a bad thing to have, but he doesn’t succeed, Cassandra grunting disinterestedly at everything he says. Solas stays out of it, quietly pulling out his bedroll and falling asleep instantly. He’s probably slept through worse.

Revel watches from the sidelines, grinning unabashedly. When Varric throws his hands up in defeat and Cassandra turns her stern gaze on him, Revel lays out his bedroll next to Solas and crawls in.

He doesn’t sleep. Listening to the crackle of the fire and the chirrups of the night bugs, the evening passes in a dazed blur. Revel watches as Solas rises in the early morning, puttering about the camp as Cassandra remains ever vigilant. She doesn’t look exhausted, but there are definite bags under her sharp eyes. Revel almost feels bad for her.

They arrive at the Inquisition’s Hinterlands camp late in the afternoon. A dwarf scout greets them, introducing herself as Scout Harding. She gives them the situation: rogue templar and apostate mage camps wreaking havoc, Inquisition soldiers under attack while guarding the Mother at the Crossroads, Horsemaster Dennet unreachable. It all sounds like very important work which Revel should completely avoid. They stay in the camp for the night and make their way down in the morning; already the roar of distant battle rages in the air.

“We must hurry,” Cassandra says, leading them through a valley. “Our forces at the Crossroads will not last much longer.”

Following the trail of signs and stone walls, they reach the Crossroads in time to witness templars charging the Inquisition scouts. Revel breaks into a run, knives in hand, leaping onto a templar’s back. The templar falters under his weight, giving the scout he was grappling with a chance to knock him under the chin. Revel scrabbles to find a place to stab under all the armor, slashing at cloth and eventually flesh. The templar goes down, but another appears at the edge of Revel’s vision. He jumps away, though not quickly enough to avoid being hit by a sword - but the blade bounces off a barrier, and Revel retreats.

The other templar is a heavy one, carrying one of those great big shields that deflect magic on one of his arms. Revel circles around him, walking backwards as he forces the templar’s back to where Solas and Varric stand at the edge of the battlefield. There’s no way he can take this guy on his own, but with a mage and a crossbow-dwarf? Well, the odds are still pretty slim, but -

There! The templar turns after being struck too many times by magic bolts and arrows, and Revel sinks a knife into his neck, revealed after one of Varric’s shots knocked his helmet askew. The templar gurgles, and Revel feels the life sap out of him as he falls, the sorry bastard.

“Pearls, watch out!”

Varric’s warning comes too late; a templar bashes Revel in the back with a shield, and he’s sent flying to the ground, rolling in dirt and blood. Revel screams - he can’t move, it hurts, help - and he hears Cassandra roar, and Solas is there, standing above him, and Varric is tilting his head up and pouring a potion down his throat -

He gasps and sits up, and the battle is over, Cassandra is storming towards him, but then her head snaps up and someone calls, “The mages!”

_Fenedhis_. Revel rolls to his feet - his back is one giant bruise but he’s still alive, it’s fine - and Cassandra shoves him behind her. He stumbles. “Stay back and find cover,” she orders. Revel makes a face and searches for his knives. He’s not going to just sit around twiddling his thumbs while they’re under attack.

Mages are easier. Sneak around them and strike when their barriers are down - they’ll die pretty quick. The problem is actually making his way there. They’re all on high ground, and Cassandra keeps yelling at him and breaking his cover, and it seems like Varric and Solas are actually following him around, what the shit -

Solas casts a barrier just in time to protect them from the ground exploding in fire beneath their feet. “Stop sticking to me, you’re making all of us a target!” Revel yells, and Varric just shoots at the mage and yells back, “Sorry, Pearls, orders from the Seeker!”

He can’t do anything like this. If he keeps moving around that means Varric and Solas can’t focus on attacking - they’re tailing him like he’s a halla’s kid, and that just leaves all of them vulnerable. So he scowls and stands there, doing nothing in the middle of battle as magic explodes all around him. Cassandra’s off breaking bones with her shield and slicing the mages to ribbons, and he glares at her the entire time.

Eventually the mages fall. Cassandra saunters back, all bloodied and dripping gore that is decidedly not her own. He opens his mouth to ask her _what the fuck she thinks she’s doing_ but she beats him to it.

“You do _not_ ignore my orders,” she snarls, approaching him. “You do _not_ charge the enemy line. Did you even stop to think what would happen if you had died?”

Furious, Revel sweeps his arm out towards the scouts. “I couldn’t just let the templars kill them! What was I supposed to do, sit in the back and wait?”

“Yes!” Cassandra stomps into his space, forcing him to take a few steps back. “You wait for my command! I cannot protect you if you throw yourself at the nearest blade. Of all the foolish, idiotic -” She cuts off with a growl, her face full of disgust.

“Maybe I should handle this, Seeker -” Varric interrupts, but Cassandra thrusts out a hand.

“No. This is my responsibility.” She takes a deep breath, narrowing her eyes at Revel, who glares. “What do you think would happen if you had died?” she repeats, biting out each syllable.

Revel scowls. “I don’t-”

“ _What do you think would happen?_ ” When Revel doesn’t answer, she commands, “Look up.” When he doesn’t move, scowling down at the ground, she takes him by the shoulders and forcefully spins him around. “ _Look_. What do you see?”

He remains silent, but after Cassandra growls in his ear he answers sullenly, “The Breach.”

“And who is the only one who can close it?”

He growls in irritation.

“Yes, _you_. And what will happen if there is no one left to close the Breach?” Revel folds his arms over his chest, refusing to answer. “The Breach will grow unstable. It will continue to expand. It will swallow the world. Everyone you know will die.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you could be so dramatic,” he snipes, and Cassandra shakes him roughly on the shoulder.

“Now is not the time for your jokes,” she snaps. “If there is one thing you must take seriously, it is closing the Breach - and that means making sure you stay alive.” Cassandra releases him, the scowl on her face matching his own in ferocity. “You have your knives for your defense, not for you to charge headlong into danger. You are angry at me for treating you like a child, but you have proven to me that when it comes to your own safety, you are a short-sighted _juvenile_ who thinks he is invincible. Others like you die from their idiocy, but we cannot afford for that to happen. Tell me: can you honestly say you have never experienced a danger you could not escape from alone?”

The unbidden memory of the raging druffalo the soldier who saved him rushes to mind. Revel squeezes his eyes shut, willing it away.

“The Inquisition - no, the _world_ needs you,” she repeats. “We will do everything in our power to keep you safe, even if it means keeping shadows at your back and sacrificing our own.”

Revel keeps his face turned to the ground.

“Would your brother want you to -”

“Stop.” Without looking at her he turns around, facing where they need to go to meet Mother Giselle. “You’ve made your point. I get it. Shut up.”

“I did not want to upset you, but-”

“I said _shut up_ -”

“- you needed to be told to grow up.” Cassandra walks past, not even sparing a glance at him.

 

 

Back at Haven, Revel throws a knife into the cabin wall. It thuds through the wood and shivers satisfyingly. He follows up with another knife, then takes out the daggers hidden in his clothes and lances them through the walls, too. What’d really complete the picture is a portrait of Cassandra behind those knives, or maybe Mother Giselle, or maybe whoever really started this whole damned mess.

They got the ‘help’ of the Mother, if you could even call it that, after she treated him to a patronizing monologue about convincing the Chantry at Val Royeaux that he’s just a harmless little elf boy, not a big scary demon about to set the world aflame. Then she turned around and said that everything he does is going to reflect the Inquisition because apparently people see _him_ as its leader, of all people. “The world will look to you for hope and for guidance,” she’d said. “When they hear of the Inquisition, they think of the Herald of Andraste, the one who promises to deliver us - or destroy us.”

As if he needed this crap.

To make things worse, when he’d finally been freed from Mother Giselle’s clutches, Cassandra had the nerve to try and command them back to Haven immediately, as if there weren’t a thousand things they needed to do here to help people. She didn’t even want to let him go seal the rifts - _Solas_ had to convince her to let him go.

“We have sealed rifts with just the four of us before.” Cassandra had listened to him with her arms crossed, stubborn, and Solas continued, “Waiting for reinforcements would only give the rifts time to expand and allow more demons through the Veil. They are far too dangerous a problem to leave unattended.”

“Not to mention all these refugees who might get caught up in it,” Varric chipped in. “You can’t tell me you aren’t worried, Seeker. Mages, templars - that’s out of our hands for now, but demons? We can take them.” He hefted Bianca onto his shoulder.

Cassandra sighed. “Fine. But you stay back,” she ordered Revel, looking pointedly at him. A scowl had flashed across his face before he wiped it blank and gave a mock salute.

“Yes, ser! Ready to be a meatsack, ser!”

Cassandra had huffed in aggravation and turned away. “Then we go.”

Someone knocks on the door. Revel wipes a hand across his eyes and yanks the last of his knives from the wall, sliding it back into its hiding place. There’s a messenger waiting outside. “Sister Leliana has sent for you, my lord. Please head to the Chantry as soon as possible.”

“All right,” he says, and he walks out with his face carefully arranged into a serene expression. There are curious glances, as there always are, and he won’t give any of them the satisfaction of prying into his business. Cassandra is waiting in ambush outside the war council room. Revel’s face darkens when he catches sight of her, but she just arches a brow and opens the door for him, following behind as he enters. Leliana and Cullen are already there, standing at the opposite side of the table. Josephine is conspicuously absent.

“We need to plan our next move,” Leliana begins when Revel and Cassandra approach. “Mother Giselle arrived this morning. She and Josephine have been collaborating to find the clerics you should address… _if_ you go to Val Royeaux.”

“I still think it’s a terrible idea,” Cullen grumbles. Leliana sighs exasperatedly, but doesn’t disagree.

He looks at the table, sees the dagger stabbed into Orlais. That must be the capital. “But it’s our only choice, isn’t it, since no one else will talk with us. When do I go?”

Cullen says, “As soon as you’re ready-” while Leliana starts, “First you must-” They shoot each other irritated looks, then Cullen sighs and shifts back while Leliana continues, “First you must think about how you will address the Chantry. Josephine can help you once she’s done talking with Mother Giselle.”

“Is she giving me a lesson on social graces?” Revel asks, crossing his arms. His voice comes out unintentionally flat. “Been a while since I’ve had one of those. Believe me, if you think I’m a savage Dalish now, you would _not_ want to see how I was before.” It’s a joke, but Cullen looks worried while Leliana regards him with that blank face of hers. Revel amends, “Got it. Don’t be a walking disaster and offend everyone in Val Royo.”

“Val Royeaux,” Leliana corrects, and Revel makes a face. He’d just _said_ that.

Cassandra speaks up suddenly. “They _will_ slander you,” she says from beside him. “They will try to provoke you into losing control. You must be ready for that.” Revel fists at the cloth on his arms, holding back from snapping at her. See? He can show restraint, he thinks viciously, fighting to keep a neutral expression on his face. Cassandra huffs. “Work on that glare of yours. You have a more expressive face than you know.” The scowl finally breaks across his mouth.

Cullen clears his throat. “Chancellor Roderick is a good example of the kind of people you can expect in Val Royeaux. I’ve been told you have had some… less than pleasant encounters with the man.”

“Has anyone _not_?” Revel mutters under his breath.

“Is that all?” Cassandra asks.

Cullen says, “There are other matters we must attend to, but none which require the Herald.” Revel exhales, recognizing the dismissal when he hears it. Leliana walks away to one of her piles of suspicious papers.

“There is one thing. Here.” She hands him a letter. He blinks his eyes at it, unfolding the paper. Heart pounding, he nearly drops it when he sees Keeper Istimaethoriel’s name signed at the bottom.

It’s the clan. Dread seeps into him.

_It has come to our attention that two of our clansmen were killed at the Conclave. Clan Lavellan requests that their remains and any belongings which survived them be returned to us, if at all possible_ , the letter reads.

“I,” he falters, his expression breaking. His hands shake, grip crumpling the paper. They think he’s _dead_?

_Maybe he should be_ , a small part of him thinks.

He doesn’t know what to say, what to do. They’re all looking at him, watching him, and he can’t - he can’t think in here, he needs to get out. “I - need to go.” He shoves the letter into his pocket and backs away. Cassandra and Cullen regard him with alarm, while Leliana’s eyes remain cold.

“Back to Wycome?” she asks. The other two startle, and Revel shakes his head jerkily.

“No. Just - I need to be alone,” he stutters, and flees out of the Chantry.

They think he’s dead. Maybe it’s better that way. Better than letting them know that he failed them. Failed to keep his promises, failed to keep his brother safe, failed to protect the _one_ _thing_ , the _one_ _good_ _thing_ left in this whole damned world -

He’s sobbing behind a tree like he’s eleven again, lost and alone and wondering if there’s anyone left who would hear him if he screamed for help.

He sits there, tears freezing into frost on his cheeks as they fall, and puts his head between his hands.

The sky changes color. He can’t bring himself to get up, even as the ground darkens with the coming evening. His eyes slip nearly shut, and he can’t find the energy to open them. Maybe he should just die here.

No. He can’t, that’s just stupid. The cold makes him stupid. Revel tips over, trying to get some strength in his limbs, but he’s so cold. He can’t move. Can’t…

He hears the sound of boots crunching through snow, getting closer and closer, and feels a moment of relief. Someone’s here. The boots stop next to him. He’s lifted up into strong arms. The last thing he sees is armor emblazoned with the eye of the Inquisition.

 

 

Revel wakes up in Solas’s cabin. The man is standing by a fire, tending to a kettle. He pours the boiling liquid into a cup. Steam curls up languidly, and Revel smells something like herbs.

He sits up from the bed, and Solas turns to him. He has that scrutinizing look in his eyes, and Revel turns his gaze away. “Drink this,” the man says, bringing him the cup. It’s tea. It’s hot in his hands, and Revel obediently takes a sip, then promptly chokes.

“This is terrible! Eugh.” He covers his mouth as he grimaces, warily regarding the cup.

“Oh, I quite agree,” Solas says lightly. Does he think this is _funny_? “But it will keep your mind from wandering into the places you would rather it not visit. Drink. You will feel better when it is done.”

Revel bears through it. Maybe he could get away with pouring the liquid onto the floor. That probably wouldn’t end well for him, though. When it’s over with, he stumbles out of the bed and drops the cup onto Solas’s table. Solas hums, not looking up, just poking at one of the strange singing shards they’d found in the Hinterlands.

“Thanks,” Revel says sullenly. He waits for a response, and explanation, but Solas just turns the shard over in his hands.

“Cassandra wanted to see you when you awoke,” the man says idly. Revel bites his cheek and nods, walking out.

He finds her outside Haven, destroying the training dummies while Cullen oversees the sparring soldiers. When she sees him, she puts her blade away and awkwardly asks him how he’s faring. It’s almost sweet. Revel tells her that he’s fine.

“Thanks for… yesterday,” he grits out grudgingly.

Cassandra nods stiffly. After a moment’s hesitation she asks, “What do you plan to do?”

Revel lists off, with only half the energy he’d normally have, “Well, first, I’ve got to meet Josephine, maybe get her to teach me a few Orlesian dances to charm the Chantry Mothers. Then I have to pack for the trip and bring my extra-fashionable clothes so I don’t get laughed out of the city, and -”

“About your clan,” Cassandra cuts in, annoyed.

Feeling a spark of anger he says, “My plan is to not discuss it with _you_ ,” and walks away. They’re done here.

 

 

Josephine briefs him on what she’s gone over with Mother Giselle, as well as on the situation in Val Royeaux. The Inquisition can’t set foot in the capital without being sent out or attacked; the Chantry is fierce in its denouncement, and the only way to settle the matter is to shove proof that they’re wrong right in their faces. That means Revel going there himself to show he’s not out to destroy the world, as the Chantry claims.

To do this, the Inquisition needs to build up its power and reputation. They need connections to allow the Herald of Andraste access into Val Royeaux. Josephine’s pulling as many strings as she can, and she tells him that she will have news on whether or not she’s successful by the next week.

Before he leaves, she offers to have an elven scribe deliver a message to Clan Lavellan for him. He pauses, in the middle of standing up from a cushy chair.

“What kind of message?” he asks.

“News that you are alive and being treated well, and perhaps a letter from yourself.”

Revel sits back down, wringing his hands. Josephine calmly slides a piece of parchment across her desk, and places the quill and ink next to it.

“Would you like me to leave the room?” she offers.

“We can share,” he says, blotting the ink onto the page. He tries to find the words to write, but everything feels wrong. What can he even say? ‘Hi, I’m alive, sorry that I let your First die by himself’? He rips the sheet with the quill’s point in frustration, and Josephine quietly slides him another. He ends up crumpling that one, smashing it into a ball and throwing it on the floor. Every time he scraps a letter, Josephine gives him another paper so he can try again, but it’s just not working.

At one point, she sets aside her work and asks, “Is there any way I can help, Lord Herald?”

“I’m not Lord anything.” He sighs and drops his face onto the paper, ink smearing on his face. Josephine lets out a scandalized gasp and makes him lift his head so she can dab at the ink with a handkerchief.

“I’ve… never been on good terms with the Keeper,” he admits quietly. Josephine slows in her dabbing. “My brother was my only tie to her, and to the clan. Now that he’s gone…”

Josephine retracts her hand, looking at him with worry. She seems at a loss for words, and Revel can’t blame her. What do you even say to something like that? If not even she knows, no wonder Revel’s having such a hard time. He laughs dryly.

“Shouldn’t have wiped off the ink. I could’ve slammed my face on the paper and sent it - _that_ would’ve let them know I’m still around.” Sighing, he picks up the quill again, fiddling with it as he rests his head on his other hand. “Sorry for wasting your paper.”

“It is no trouble. Take as many as you wish.” To make her point, she places a stack of parchment in front of him.

He tries again. _Dear Keeper_ , he writes, _unfortunately, the one of us who survived isn’t the one you would’ve hoped for_ \- then he scratches out the line. It’s too flippant, and the last thing he wants is to seem like this isn’t important to him. This isn’t the mischievous prankster who never took anything seriously writing this letter, it’s _Revel_ , and he needs to make that clear. He needs to be honest.

Gripping the quill with clenched fingers, Revel brings the point down and begins to write again.

 

 

Dear Keeper Istimaethoriel,

You were right, hahren. It is my brother who always gets me out of trouble, and I was a fool to think I could do the same for him. No one knows what happened at the Conclave and I don’t even know how or why I was the one who survived, out of everyone. Maybe it was Mahanon’s prayers. He would ask Mythal for everyone else’s safety before his own.

The Herald of Andraste. I am sure you have heard of him, if you know of the Breach. He’s me. Whatever happened at the Conclave left me with this mark on my hand and a connection to the Breach, and until the Inquisition finds a way to close it I cannot return. Stopping this from hurting more people is the only thing I can do to honor my brother’s memory.

I worry that you know this, and deliberately said your clansmen are dead because Revel Lavellan is now dead to you. If that is what you intended then I will accept my banishment from the clan. I know I have failed you, Keeper. I’ve failed myself. I’ve failed Mahanon. I promised I would keep him safe. Instead he died alone. I will never forgive myself, and I fully expect that you will not, either.

I am so sorry, Keeper.

Revel

 

 

He intends to spend the rest of his time alone. While making his way to Haven’s main gate he’s stopped by Varric, who invites him to play a game of Wicked Grace. “Friendly duel. Just you and me, Pearls.”

“I don’t know how to play,” Revel rebuffs gently, but Varric just shakes his head.

“Now that’s just criminal. Come on, I’ll teach you. Knowing how to play a good game makes the difference between those who walk out with dignity, and those who walk out in their smalls.”

So Revel follows him to the tavern, headed by a new innkeeper, a woman named Flissa. Varric regales him with stories about Hawke and his companions as they play.

“I don’t think I’m very good at this,” he says, having just lost another round.

“Hey, at least you’re better than Blondie. He played the worst hands, let me tell you.” Varric takes the cards, shuffling with some complicated maneuvers then dealing them out again.

“Too honest?” Revel asks, swapping out a card for one tucked up his sleeve.

“Huh. Maybe.” Then, a little later, “Actually, no. I’m pretty sure he was just bad.” They put down their cards. Revel just barely wins, and Varric cracks a grin. “Looks like you’re finally getting the hang of this.”

The corners of Revel’s mouth twitch up.

He doesn’t win the next rounds - he’s pretty sure Varric had let him win that one time - but he’s confident that he knows how to play now. It basically comes down to not knowing what you’re doing and cheating shamelessly.

He heads out when the soldiers come in for an evening drink. He stares absently at a soldier with a familiar face, realizing in a flash that Dwyn is one of the men among the soldiers. Varric raises a brow when Revel ducks out of sight. He doesn’t pry, though - that’s what he likes about Varric.

It takes several days for a reply to arrive. Josephine sends for him and personally hands over a letter and a bag - his bag of treasures, the one he’d left in Wycome. He takes them with clammy hands.

Revel journeys to his camp. Once inside the tent, he unfolds the letter and holds it over his lap. This is it. This is where the Keeper tells him that taking him in was a mistake, where she says that he’s no longer welcome in the clan. What will she call him? _Harellan_ , a traitor to his kin? Maybe she’ll tell him that he’s _len’alas_ _lath’din_. A dirty child no one loves. His hands twist, and he nearly rips the letter in two.

Taking deep breaths, he eventually lifts it up and reads.

_Da’len_ , it begins.

 

 

Andaran atish’an. It does my heart well to know that you are safe. When we heard tales of the Herald, I did not dare hope that perhaps it was you. Please, da’len, do not blame yourself for what happened. No one could have imagined what would result at the Conclave. It is a miracle that you survived. Do not turn it into a curse.

The members of the Inquisition who visited our clan spoke persuasively of the good work you are doing, and there has been especial praise of the efforts you have made to ensure our kind is treated with fairness by the others in the Inquisition. You know that Clan Lavellan has little in the way of gold, but I have sent with the messengers your belongings and some of our healing herbs, as Sylaise blessed us with an abundance in our recent foraging. I do not wish to leave you alone, lethallin, but I have made the decision that the clan should remain in Wycome for the time being. We would only be a distraction if we joined you, our hunters arguing with the humans as they so easily do.

Nevertheless, know that we have not abandoned you. If you need aid, send word, and we are with you. Clan Lavellan is proud, da’len. Never doubt that you shall always have a place with us.

Dareth shiral,

Keeper Istimaethoriel Lavellan

 

 

Revel rubs at his eyes, wiping away the wet tracks. He rereads the letter over and over. He can hardly believe it - even after all this, he is still Lavellan. He hasn’t been abandoned. They don’t blame him for what happened, though he still feels the burning coil of guilt in his stomach. Just knowing they are still with him in heart makes him feel that he can bear through it.

After several minutes he finally folds the letter and tucks it away. He reaches over to the bag, pulling it open. There inside are his treasures: a charm from his mother to ward off bad dreams, the halla statuette Mahanon had carved for him on his thirteenth birthday, and several books with crystal grace flowers pressed in between the pages. There’s something else in there, too - Revel pulls out an amulet. He’s never seen this before. It’s curiously warm to the touch, and when Revel slips it on his neck he feels somehow stronger than before. It must be a gift from the clan. Feeling the knot of anxiety loosening in his chest, Revel lays back on his bedroll and opens one of his books, breathing in the scent of crystal grace and home.


	5. To a Point

Once the preparations have been made and their bags have been packed, Revel and the others set off to Orlais. It takes them over a week of trudging through Gherlen’s pass at the north of Ferelden. Revel ignores Cassandra completely, at first, digging his fingers into his ears and pretending he can’t hear anything she says, but after enough days of being given the stink-eye even _he_ tires of how uncomfortable the camp gets. Revel gives it up in favor of annoying her instead, digging out worms and dropping maggots near her bedroll when she (finally) goes to sleep. Her face of horrified disgust? Hilarious.

The trip is worth it, though - the city of Val Royeaux is absolutely incredible. The buildings are so shiny and have statues carved into their walls, and there are miniature gardens along the streets, and even the foods are complicated and decorative. If his stomach weren’t twisting and roiling, he would’ve badgered someone into buying him one of those frilly cakes.

As it is, Revel stands at the entrance to the market plaza, feeling tiny and insignificant compared to the heaving wall of statues around him. “I beg of you, let us sit down and… no, no, it was implore. I _implore_ you,” he mumbles, trying to remember the speech Josephine wrote for him.

He can hear excited murmurs coming from the other side of the market, and sees the tail end of a crowd spilling from behind the building at the center. This is going to be terrible. Steeling himself, he takes a deep breath and walks out of the hall into the plaza. The Orlesians he passes back away. They make exaggerated gestures of revulsion and Revel does his best to ignore them, walking confidently alongside Cassandra with Varric and Solas flanking him.

He stops in front of a platform. A Chantry cleric begins her speech as he approaches, looking at him with disgust. Ugh. Good thing he’s not here to make friends - “Give them _doubts_ ,” Mother Giselle had said. He schools his face into a serene expression and listens to the cleric spew trash. She’s trying to ply the audience with dramatized words, saying Justinia died of treachery and - the cleric looks right at him - that they will no longer have to wonder what will become of her murderer.

“We say this is a false prophet! No servant of anything beyond his selfish greed!” she sneers, and oh, he can definitely see Roderick in these people. Are all Chantry clerics so good at looking at others like they’re shit? How curious.

The crowd titters in excitement, a wave of voices rising. Revel steps forward, hands clasped in front of them, and they hush, waiting eagerly for a response. Vultures, the lot of them.

“We have come here seeking only peace and understanding,” he says, face dropping as he reveals some of the nervousness bubbling inside of him. Show weakness, capitalize on his appearance of a scared child - they can’t say he’s some great evil conqueror _then_ , can they? He continues, “I implore you. Let us sit down and discuss the threat which hangs over us still. We can only solve this together.”

“It is true,” Cassandra adds, her strong voice carrying through the plaza. Revel relaxes minutely as she takes over. “The Inquisition seeks only to end this madness before it is too late!”

The Chantry cleric sweeps out an arm, saying, “It is already too late!” She gestures to a group of templars who walk up the platform. “The templars have returned to the Chantry! They will face this ‘Inquisition’, and the people will be safe once more!”

Then one of the templars decks her.

Scandalized cries erupt from the audience. One of the templars who’d been standing with the cleric moves to help her up, but another one, old and ugly-looking, stops him. “She is beneath us,” the man says haughtily, and the young man just looks heartbroken. Aww, didn’t sign up for punching old ladies and leaving them on the ground, eh?

Varric elbows him and gives him a _what are you waiting for_ expression, so Revel steps forward and demands, “What is the meaning of this?”

The old man looks down on him. “Her claim to ‘authority’ is an insult. Much like your own.” And oh, what a prick. Should’ve known the templars were rotten seeds. The man walks off, and Cassandra splits off to confront him.

“Lord Seeker Lucius,” she calls him. Seeker? Like her? Revel shoots Varric a confused look, but the dwarf just shrugs. “It is imperative that we speak with -”

The man brushes her off with all the disdain he had shown Revel. Cassandra looks astounded as he calls the Inquisition heretical and the Chantry baggage. “The only destiny here that demands respect is mine,” Lucius says, arrogant.

“Well, messere,” Revel can’t help but cut in, seeing that Cassandra is speechless, “if you’re so great, help us seal the Breach, and the Inquisition’s duty will be done.”

The Lord Seeker scoffs, a cruel smirk curling his mouth. “Oh, the Breach is indeed a threat, but you certainly have no power to do anything about it.”

Revel stares at him flatly.

The young templar from before appears at the Lord Seeker’s side, trying to appeal to him, but another stops him. “You are called to a higher purpose. Do not question.”

Seriously? ‘Don’t think, just do what we say’? The Lord Seeker takes a few steps forward, addressing Revel and Cassandra. _“I_ will make the templar order a power that stands alone against the Void. _We_ deserve recognition, independence! You have shown me nothing, and the Inquisition… less than nothing.” The man looks self-satisfied, like he’s just pulled his hand out of his smalls. He orders the templars out of Val Royeaux - it doesn’t deserve their protection, he says. The Orlesians cry out in dismay, and Revel watches, less than impressed, as the templars march out.

“Charming fellow, isn’t he,” Varric remarks.

Cassandra shakes her head, grim. “Has he gone mad?”

“With power? Obviously,” Revel says, crossing his arms. “Did you hear him? _‘I_ will make the templar order a power that stands alone against demons and the great big hole in the sky, ha ha ha!’” he imitates, voice exaggeratedly low. “’Puny Inquisition, you should all be ashamed!’ With that attitude, I doubt they’ll be offering to help us anytime soon.”

Frowning, Cassandra says, “I wouldn’t write them off so quickly. There must be those in the Order who see what he’s become.”

“Yeah, _everyone_.” Revel sweeps out a hand. “It’s just a matter of, ‘Do they care?’ And after, ‘Will they do anything about it?’ There was the one templar who looked bad for - oh, right,” Revel cuts off, muttering. He walks back over to the platform and hops up. The Chantry sisters are praying on their knees for the cleric as if she’s dead, but the cleric is still alive, struggling to rise. The fire has gone out in her, probably dimmed by the pain. It’s not fun being punched by templars, he knows.

“May I help you up?” he asks politely, because he’s not completely horrible. The cleric glowers at him, and he makes his best teary-worried face. It fooled the shemlen guards when he’d gotten caught in some restricted areas before, and it fools the cleric, too, as her shoulders lose tension. She grudgingly agrees, and he helps her into a more comfortable sitting position.

He hears heavy boots on the platform behind him, and the cleric’s face pinches as she hisses, “This victory must please you greatly, Seeker Cassandra.” Ah, so they know each other?

“We came here seeking only to speak with the Mothers. This is not our doing, but yours,” Cassandra retorts. Mm, good work making friends, Cassandra. She’s really so talented at that. The cleric opens her mouth to respond when Revel cuts in.

“Are you hurt badly, messere? Will you need a healer? I have some potions to ease the pain - I know I needed one, last I was hit by a templar,” he rambles, quickly pressing the potion into the cleric’s hand. Successfully distracted, the cleric regards him with surprise and wariness. He smiles, hopefully in a friendly and not it’s-hilarious-you-just-got-hit sort of way.

As if it pains her deeply to do so, the cleric slowly uncaps the potion and sips from it. “I will be fine,” she says through clenched teeth.

Right. Well, she’d better be, because she’s the only Chantry cleric Revel sees around for him to talk to. He’s not about to go back to Leliana empty-handed. “Would you be willing to put us in contact with the rest of the Chantry, messere? The Inquisition wishes only to discuss the matter of the Breach. It’s urgent that we find a way to stop it before things get worse…”

The cleric jerks out of his grasp, face contorted in anger. “Did you not see what just happened? We have been shown up by our own templars, in front of everyone! And my fellow clerics,” she spits, “have scattered to the wind, along with their convictions.”

“The Chantry is lost without a unifying leader,” Solas notes quietly.

The cleric sighs, dropping the empty flask with a clink. “Just tell me one thing,” she says, looking at Revel. “You do not truly believe you are the Maker’s chosen, do you? If you are not, then what are you?”

“Um,” he says eloquently. “I’m just here to help however I can, chosen or not. And,” he continues, going back to his original intent, “I would truly appreciate if you would aid us in whatever way possible. We need to stand together in these terrible times. Even if it’s just letting people know I’m not out to hurt people or whatever rumors are out there, that would be enough, or maybe helping the wounded and the refugees…”

She regards him with that slight sneer on her face, and Revel thinks with a sinking feeling that this is really not going to work out. The cleric shakes her head and says stiffly, “I cannot promise anything,” and makes to stand. The Chantry sisters finally get off their asses and steady her on her feet.

Revel rises too. “Is - is there a ‘but’ to that?” he asks, because he needs to know what to report back, dammit. The cleric turns away.

She repeats, “I cannot promise anything. But,” she says over her shoulder as she walks down the platform, “I see now that you are not the one we must fear. That is all.”

He watches her leave. _What does that even mean?_ he wants to yell back at her. Ugh, stupid cryptic parting lines.

“That turned out as well as it could have, I’d say,” Varric comments, appearing beside him. “Good work, Pearls.”

“Yes,” Cassandra agrees. Revel turns around to face her and Solas. “She may not be an ally, but the Chantry may no longer be an enemy. That alone will suffice.”

Revel grins, teasing just a little meanly, “Good! Maybe praise me a little more? She was about ready to go at your throat, you know.”

Cassandra scrunches her nose. “Mother Hevara were never on good terms. She is so…” She makes a disgusted noise. Revel raises his brows, and she sighs, continuing, “Fine. Yes, you did well. I will admit, you are skilled at charming others _when_ you make the effort.”

“Thank you,” he says brightly. “So, now that that’s over, can you buy me one of those frilly cakes as a reward? One of those big ones, with three layers.”

Cassandra sighs again.

Revel pesters her with his full might until she finally agrees to head back to the cake shop (”But I will only buy you a _small_ one,” she warns). He hums as he peruses the cakes, snickering at how stupid some of them look. There’s a cake with some woman’s face on it, made from blobby colored cream and candies. It looks vaguely horrifying, and he wants it.

Cassandra makes a repulsed face when he points it out, and even Varric looks put off by it. “Please, Cassandra?” he begs, delighting in her horror. “I love you, Cassandra,” he says, when she hands the gold pieces over to the shopkeeper.

“You are very friendly when you want something,” she says wearily, as if part of her soul had broken by buying this monstrosity.

Picking up the cake, Revel says, “Well, I don’t get cake by being _mean_.”

They walk out of the store, Revel looking for one of those open-air tables so he can sit and enjoy his prize, when an arrow pierces the ground a few feet away. He startles. _“Fenedhis_! What’s that?”

“A message.” Solas unwraps the letter tied around the arrow shaft. He reads it, narrows his eyes, reads it some more, then passes it off to Cassandra, who also narrows her eyes.

“Is this a joke?” she declares.

“Mind sharing, Seeker?” Cassandra grunts and passes the note to Varric, who looks at it with amusement. Finally, he gives the note to Revel. There’s a bunch of doodles and some sloppy writing in the middle, and at the bottom is a wonky map of Val Royeaux.

Huh. “So this person says someone’s out to get me. Shocking.”

“Ah. So there was a message in that mess,” Cassandra mutters under her breath. Aloud, she says, “If this is a genuine threat, we must look into it.”

As she speaks, a man in fancy clothing approaches them. He has a letter in his hands. Revel blinks as the man introduces himself and passes the letter onto him. It’s an invitation from someone called Vivienne de Fer to a salon - which, Solas explains, is a form of rich people party.

Then, as they’re exiting the plaza, someone else stops them. An elven mage, First Enchanter Fiona and leader of the rebel mages. She invites them to Redcliffe for possible negotiations. Varric whistles after she leaves.

“You sure are popular, Herald.”

“We’ll deal with this,” Revel decides, _“after_ I eat my cake.”

 

 

The first order of business is dealing with the note from the friend of Red Jenny, whoever that is. They run around Val Royeaux and pick up some incriminating evidence pointing towards a suspicious gathering in the late evening. Since the Enchanter de Fer’s salon is the next evening, Cassandra unwillingly agrees to order some rooms at an inn, the least gaudy one she could find (which was still pretty gaudy, truth be told). They head out to the secluded courtyard after a bit of arguing, Cassandra insisting he stay at the inn while Revel points out that they’ll all be safer together rather than split up.

Mercenaries set upon them as soon as they get there. Revel stays back with Solas and Varric, only attacking when they get too close for comfort. Cassandra’s off on her own, taking on two of them at once and still winning. She’s extremely terrifying.

When the mercenaries are dead they move on, going through a set of blue doors. Beyond them is… well, he might be a nobleman? He’s dressed in those strange, skin-tight pants and has a shiny mask on, and he talks as if he’s important. If there’s one thing Revel knows, it’s that the man didn’t expect them to show up - he says as much after tossing a few fireballs at Revel’s head.

“Herald of Andraste! How much did you expend to discover me? It must have weakened the Inquisition immeasurably!”

And wow, Revel almost feels bad for how high of an opinion this guy has for himself. The man is obviously delusional, talking about how important he is and about his supposed victories against the Herald. Revel shares a confused glance with Varric, who makes a _hell-if-I-know_ expression.

There’s a clamor from the side, and a mercenary falls dead. Behind him is an elf with a bow. “Just say what,” she says, cocking her arrow.

“What is this -” the man starts, and then he’s dead, arrow through the mouth. The girl makes a grossed out noise.

She starts approaching, rambling, and Revel starts to walk towards her but is stopped by Cassandra, who blocks him.

“’Blah, blah, blah! Obey me! Arrow in my face!’” the girl says, yanking the arrow out of the man’s corpse. It releases with a sickening squelch. She turns to face them. “So. You followed the notes well enough. Glad to see you’re…” She squints. “Wait, which one of you’s it? You know, glowing. The Herald thingy.”

“Who are you? Who is this man?” Cassandra asks, before Revel can say anything.

The elf girl wrinkles her nose. “You got a lot of questions. I’m Red Jenny - well, one of them, at least - and as for this one, no idea. I don’t know this idiot from manners. My people just said the Inquisition should look at him.”

“Your people?” Cassandra demands. “Elves?”

The girl laughs. “Ha! No. People people.” Then she turns and waves a hand to some crates and barrels. “Name’s Sera. This is cover. Get round it.” She looks back at Cassandra’s confused glare and explains, “For the reinforcements. Don’t worry. Someone tipped me their equipment shed. They’ve got no breeches,” she says, grinning.

Then the mercenaries show up. As promised, with no breeches.

Revel busts out laughing as Cassandra exclaims, “Why did you not take their weapons?”

“Because no breeches!” Sera giggles.

They make quick work of the pantsless mercenaries. When the last of them falls, Revel finally approaches the girl. He’s laughing too hard, though, and can barely get anything out. “No breeches!” he gasps out between fits of giggles.

Sera joins in his laughter. “Right! No breeches!”

“Ugh,” Cassandra says from somewhere in the back.

Calming down, Revel sticks out a hand. Sera glances down at it. “What’s that, a handshake? I don’t - wait. You’re glowing!”

“I’m the Herald thingy,” he confirms. “Used to be called Revel, but nowadays everyone’s just calling me Harold.”

“Harold? That’s a stupid name.”

“I know, isn’t it?” He sighs. Then, grinning, he asks her how she’d found this all out - because that guy seemed pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be as easy as it was. Sera happily explains about her friends, the little people like servants, cooks, gardeners, how the grand plan of the ‘tit we killed’ was foiled by a scrap of paper torn off by someone who couldn’t even read it - and Revel tells her, “That’s amazing! Why doesn’t anyone else think of doing this?”

“Because you important people are all up here,” Sera gestures, going off on another of her rambles. Revel just grins.

“We could use people like you and your friends,” he says enthusiastically, and Sera smiles. He turns around to face Cassandra. “We can, right?”

Cassandra looks on disapprovingly, and Revel’s grin fades. Ah. He’d forgotten. He’s not supposed to be making decisions, as someone who’s not actually leading the Inquisition. It’s obvious that someone like Sera isn’t going to fit in, as much as Revel doesn’t fit in. There’s no way Cassandra would agree to this, and he looks down at his feet, feeling stupid for getting carried away.

But he’s surprised when Cassandra says, “It is your decision.” He blinks at her, taken aback, but she doesn’t give any indication of changing her mind.

“So am I in, or what?” Sera asks, looking between them.

“I… think that means you’re in,” he says hesitantly. Sera grins.

“Then I’ll see you at Haven, Harold. This will be grand. Oh, and don’t forget: breeches! Lots of ‘em, in a sack. Got to be worth something, right?” She calls out, already dashing away into the night.

 

 

 

Revel sits in the open-air tavern, listening to the bard sing while Varric writes furiously in front of him. Something about stockholders and people trying to cheat their way out of things. Revel doesn’t understand much about it, just like he doesn’t understand much about most adult things.

After meeting Sera, he sees between himself and the Inquisition a gap, a distance he cannot cross. The Inquisition is a force of incredibly powerful people: the Left and Right Hands of the Divine, a Commander of an army, a diplomat with ties to nobles from around Thedas… and then there’s him. Revel. Who is he? He’s just a kid with a mark stuck on his hand that glows.

Sure, not everyone’s as high-up as Leliana and Cassandra, but Varric used travel with the Champion of Kirkwall and Solas is an expert in the Fade. Even Sera has her merits, with all her connections to the little people. But Revel? There’s nothing he can contribute besides being escorted everywhere and waving his hand around. He’s just… like one of those nugs the Orlesian women are carrying around. A cute little pet performing tricks. They don’t even trust him to go out by himself. He’s just…

He’s not smart. He’s not strong. He’s not a leader, or anything. He’s just good at fooling people, and sure, that’s a good skill to have, but there comes a point where bluffing won’t do you any good, and he feels like he’s rapidly reaching that point. The only thing he needs to do, really, is not be a burden on everyone else and just do as he’s told.

He hates doing what he’s told.

But if he doesn’t, then - what are the consequences of that? “ _Everyone you know will die,_ ” Cassandra had said. He just. Can’t deal with that. If he screws up because of his own dumb pride, then is everything going to fall to ruins?

He can’t let that happen. He can’t. So does that mean that he just has to bear through it? Accept how things are and follow orders? Be a puppet of the Inquisition?

He drops his head onto the table. It’s grossly sticky. “Varric, buy me a beer?” he asks.

“Sorry, Pearls, not gonna happen. Ask me again in a few months,” the dwarf replies distractedly. Revel groans.

He gets up and walks back to the inn with heavy footsteps. He pauses in front of Cassandra’s room and, taking a deep breath, knocks on the door.

She’d been polishing her armor before she let him in. “Herald,” she greets, closing the door. “Did you need something?”

“Can’t just be here for the fine company?” he says with false cheer. She arches a brow at him.

“I was under the impression you did not like me very much.”

He jokes, “Well, you did buy me a cake…” and her brows draw down into a deep vee.

“Something troubles you.”

Revel swallows. “Yeah,” he says, dropping the act. Cassandra nods and makes a gesture for him to sit. He drops into a chair, curls his knees up against his chest. Cassandra sits at the edge of her bed, leaning forward. She has that same piercing look in her eyes as she always does, and Revel can’t meet her gaze, instead staring at the curving grain of the wood floors.

Anyone else might’ve thrown him out by now. He’s just a bundle of moody trouble, always swinging here and there. If nothing else, he needs to be grateful to Cassandra for still being willing to talk to him after everything.

When the silence prolongs, Cassandra picks up her armor and continues polishing it without saying a word. Revel breathes out and lets his face fall against his knees.

He needs to take time to compose himself. Think about where the roots of his problem lie, and find a way to pluck them out gently without tearing up the whole of his heart, as Mahanon had taught him. He can’t just ignore them and let his problems fester, or they’ll spring up like weeds and block out any good from growing.

There is already a large rip in his heart from Mahanon’s death. He can’t afford to let this happen again. So he needs to do this carefully. He needs to talk about this to someone who can help pluck out those roots, whether gently or harshly.

So he starts, “Before, you said you wouldn’t betray my trust.”

Cassandra puts down her armor, facing him again.

Breathing shakily, Revel explains, “Back when I told you about the elves. You said that, but you did betray me. You had me followed. You let me think - if I hadn’t made some throwaway joke about it you never would have told me.” He swallows, and he sees that Cassandra is tense, but she isn’t interrupting him so he continues. “I understand that. I understand _why_ you did it. You’re right, I’m… reckless.” He laughs hollowly, swiping a hand over his head. “Keeper always said I was a troublemaker who’d get himself killed. I’ve got a history of near deaths, most of them my fault. I’ve gotten used to it. It was never going to be a big deal if I died - just another Dalish dead, what’s one more in our history? I didn’t realize just how bad of an attitude that was for… now.”

He looks at Cassandra. She’s clasping her hands tightly as she leans forward.

Looking away, he says, “Give me a bunch of bodyguards, fine. What - what angers me is not _telling_ me about it. _You_ didn’t trust _me_. You just decided that you know what’s best for me and made those choices, and - and it’s that kind of thing that kills people, you know. How am I supposed to know what’s important if you don’t tell me about it? How am I supposed to know I’m in danger if you hide it from me? And then, because I think everything’s all normal and fine, I go do some stupid _shit_ and get people _killed_ because _I -_ ” There’s definite wetness falling on his knees. He laughs, wiping at his face. “I keep crying all the time.”

Cassandra’s concerned - for once, she doesn’t look half a step from cutting him in half. When her face settles into a more recognizably grim expression, she speaks.

“I… cannot apologize for doing what was necessary,” she says haltingly. “We need to keep you safe. With you being so young I thought it best to not burden you further, that you would appreciate not being told of our... surveillance. _That_ is what I _will_ apologize for. That was not my decision to make.”

Revel nods. It's as good as he'll ever get, probably. “And I’m sorry, too. For being a brat in the Hinterlands. Yelling at you. Not listening.” He digs his nails into his arms. “It was stupid. I know I’m not good at fighting, but I rushed in without thinking.”

Cassandra sighs, sitting back. “Then we both admit our mistakes.”

There’s a pause. Cassandra stares down at her hands, gripping them into fists. Her glare could set the walls on fire, and Revel hesitantly asks, “Is there something wrong?”

She nods sharply, a bitter, wry smile crossing her lips. “I have been thinking… how unsuited I may be for this task, for leading the Inquisition if we are left with no other choice. I know that I do not always do the right thing; what I have set in motion may destroy everything I have revered my whole life. They may one day write of me as a traitor, a madwoman, a fool - and they may not be wrong. Your Keeper called you reckless - that is not so different from what my trainer said of me.” She stands and walks toward the window, her gait heavy and tense. “‘Cassandra, you are too brash. You must think before you act,’ he said.” Cassandra huffs humorlessly. “I see what must be done and I do it, but it is not always the correct course of action. I misjudged _you_ in the beginning. I thought the answer was as clear as day. Now we are here, and I cannot afford to be so careless again.”

“Then that makes two of us,” Revel says. He fidgets with his sleeves, then gets up and walks to stand beside her. “If it makes you feel better - I don’t know anything about what it takes for someone to lead, but I know that your heart is in the right place. Though I won’t always agree with you, I’ll help you find the right thing to do, if I can.”

He extends a hand, and Cassandra looks at it with a flash of amusement. They shake, and Cassandra returns Revel’s hesitant smile.

 

 

 

They need to be ready for First Enchanter Vivienne de Fer’s salon. Revel struggles with the ugly tan clothes they’re making him wear and its weird gold buttons. “We’re in the fashion capital of Thedas. Why can’t I get some better clothes?” he whines.

“If by better clothes you mean the balloon pants we saw, then go ahead,” Cassandra says, reaching over and pulling the coat together for him. Revel grimaces. Eugh. Those pants were beyond gross.

Fiddling with the rest of the buttons, he asks, “Why don’t Varric and Solas have to go?”

Without turning away from the window, Solas says, “The invitation did not specify for the elven apostate to attend.” He almost sounds… disappointed? Varric smirks.

“Please. This is my signature look. I can’t get more dressed up than this - it’s just not possible, and therefore, it’s inappropriate.” The dwarf gestures to his chest and, more specifically, to his copious (and glorious, some might say) chest hair.

Cassandra makes a disgusted noise.

Once Revel’s fully dressed, they depart for the Duke Bastien de Ghislain’s chateau. There are tons of nobles hanging about in the courtyard and Revel clams up, ducking behind Cassandra. There’s something terrifying about all those masks, the way these people are giggling and gossiping behind covered mouths. He feels stares roving over every inch of him, and he hates it.

“Ignore them,” Cassandra advises when they pass a pair of nobles whispering about the Herald. Revel grits his teeth.

“Yeah, great advice. Let’s just get this over with.”

They pass through the doors into the chateau. A crier stands at the side of the hall, calling out, “Master Lavellan and Lady Pentaghast on behalf of the Inquisition.” Some of the masks turn their way, hands fluttering in feigned shock. They’re all so fake. Eugh.

“Your distaste is showing,” Cassandra mutters drolly. Revel struggles to maintain a neutral expression.

When they move further into the room, a nobleman stops them to engage in conversation. Revel panics as Cassandra steps aside, leaving him to deal with the man. Traitor.

The noblewoman beside him joins in before Revel has to say anything, asking if all the tales she’d heard are true. Considering what the Chantry had been telling everyone just the day before, Revel smiles nervously. Shit. What does he say?

“Pardon me, but what exactly have you heard about the Herald?” Cassandra asks, before his pause grows too long and tenuous.

“Oh! The Hero of Orlais. A pleasure to meet you,” the noblewoman gushes. “Some say that when the Veil opened, Andraste herself delivered the Herald from the Fade. It is a most exciting story.”

Cassandra raises her chin instead of answering, and Revel figures that means _hurry up and say something_ , so he tells the noblewoman, “Well, I don’t know if Andraste was the one who sent me, but the rest of that is true, as far as I’ve been told.”

“Oh?” the nobleman tilts his head. “You are not certain, yourself?”

Revel shifts uncomfortably. “I do know there was a woman reaching out to me while I was - in a terrible place. It was all very hazy. Then, next thing I knew, I was with the Inquisition.”

There’s a loud scoff from a man descending the stairs. “The Inquisition? What a load of pig shit!” He swaggers up to Revel, and the other two nobles regard him flatly behind their masks. “Washed-up sisters and crazed Seekers? No one can take them seriously.”

Revel senses Cassandra puffing up behind him. Uh-oh. This man is either very brave or very stupid, and judging by everyone else’s unimpressed reactions, he’d say it’s the latter. She steps forward dangerously, and the man regards her with a fear appropriate for being faced with a woman who can win a fight three-to-one.

But before this can go any farther, the man begins freezing up in ice. Revel stumbles back into Cassandra, who steadies him.

“My dear Marquis, how unkind of you to use such language in my house… to my guests,” a woman coolly says, walking out from a doorway on the second floor. She descends the spiral steps, all grace and poise. “You know such rudeness is… intolerable.”

“Madame Vivienne,” the man pleads, his demeanor a complete turnaround from before, “I humbly beg your pardon!”

“You should.” The woman circles around to face him, standing between the man and Revel. “Whatever am I going to do with you, my dear?” The man looks absolutely terrified behind that mask. Revel bits his lip to keep in his snicker. Serves you right, ponce.

Madame Vivienne turns halfway to address Revel, who quickly schools himself. “My lord, you’re the wounded party in this unfortunate affair. What would you have me do with this foolish, foolish man?” she asks, her voice light but promising danger.

Revel glances up to Cassandra, who’s as stone-faced as ever. Great. So it’s up to him? “I think the Marquis has seen the error of his ways,” he says, because he’d rather not see the floors stained with blood tonight. Madame Vivienne’s lips twitch in amusement, and she turns, gripping the Marquis’s frosted chin.

“By the grace of Andraste, you have your life, my dear.” She snaps her fingers, and the frost vanishes. “Do be more careful with it.” The Marquis curls up, coughing, and quickly takes his leave.

Then the Madame turns, a charming smile gracing her lips, as if there was nothing out of place. Maybe for her, there wasn’t. “I’m delighted you could attend this little gathering. I’ve so wanted to meet you.” Now that she’s up close, Revel struggles to meet her eyes and not her, well, chest. Thankfully, she turns before he can be caught staring, a lingering look indicating for him to follow. He exchanges a glance with Cassandra, who curls a lip.

“I will wait here,” she tells him, sweeping her eyes across the room as if waiting for enemies to come falling out of the rafters any minute. Revel nods nervously and leaves her be, trailing after Madame Vivienne.

He follows her to an open window on the second floor, a private corner where they won’t be overheard. Once there, the Madame introduces herself as Vivienne de Fer, the First Enchanter of Montsimmard and Imperial Enchantress to the Imperial Court. It’s another Very Important Title, and Revel thinks he knows what’s coming up.

“It is an honor to meet you, Madame,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound as meek as he feels.

She smiles. “Ah, but I didn’t invite you to the chateau for pleasantries,” she says. “With Divine Justinia dead, the Chantry is in shambles. Only the Inquisition might restore sanity and order to our frightened people.” With a tone heavy with significance she continues, “As the last leader of the loyal mages of Thedas, I feel it only right that I lend my assistance to your cause.”

He _knew_ it.

Brimming with nervous energy, Revel pastes a crooked smile on his face. There is absolutely no way he can turn this down - Josephine would skin him for passing up someone powerful enough to knock nobles in their places - but he has to ask, “What exactly does your assistance entail, Madame Vivienne?”

“So polite for one so young,” she notes with amusement. She lists, “I am well versed in the politics of the Orlesian Empire. I know every member of the Imperial Court personally. I have all the resources remaining to the Circle at my disposal. And I am a mage of no small talent. Will that do?”

Yeah, that’s pretty much beyond anything he could have ever imagined. ‘Will that do,’ she says. Terrifying. “Does that mean you would be joining us at Haven yourself?” he asks. He can’t imagine someone like her out in the snow, standing with all the tents and the sweaty soldiers.

“But of course,” Madame Vivienne says, as if it were obvious.

Resisting the urge to fidget or wring his hands, Revel nods. “The Inquisition would be honored to have you, Madame Vivienne.” Two allies in the span of two days? If this doesn’t please the Inquisition, he doesn’t know what will.

She smiles approvingly. “Great things are beginning, my dear. I can promise you that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> The next chapter is already done, but it'll only be posted once the chapter after that is finished. Cassandra POV is hard.


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